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The inner city Rea Vaya routes have been suspended, but
plans are to relaunch a better service in the new year.
REA Vaya's inner city circular routes have been temporarily
withdrawn so that operations can be streamlined in preparation for 2010, the
City has announced. The trunk routes will continue operating as usual.
The City is working on improving the Rea Vaya services
The last buses on these routes will stop running on 18
November, but Joburg residents are assured that services will be much improved when
the circular routes are re-introduced in the new year, confirms Rehana Moosajee,
the member of the mayoral committee for transport.
"I have instructed my team to immediately begin with a
redesign of the CBD service that will much better serve public demand and will
also link the trunk services to high density business areas such as
Braamfontein."
Rea Vaya services have been operating on trunk routes
since 31 August but the inner city circular routes were only introduced at the
end of September. From the start the trunk route uptake was a huge success, with
an average of 16 000 passengers a day making use of the services between
Thokoza Park, in Soweto and Ellis Park, in the east.
Poor uptake
The same could not be said for the inner city circular routes, referred to as
C3 (Braamfontein) and C4 (Newtown), where buses on average only transported
about 200 passengers daily. The City acknowledges, however, that residents will
be inconvenienced by the sudden suspension of the service.
"We apologise to those who have taken it up and urge them
to remain patient with us," confirms the City of Joburg's deputy director of
communications, Nthatisi Modingoane.
He cites a number of reasons for the poor uptake, not
least of which is the lack of co-operation shown by fellow commuters using
private cars and taxis. From the start this was a huge challenge, with private
vehicles parking at most of the stations in the inner city, forcing Rea Vaya
commuters to disembark in the middle of the road. Existing traffic congestion
in general exacerbated the problem.
"We are also engaging the Johannesburg metropolitan
police department to implement a plan to address the clearing of bus stops and
the policing of the exclusive BRT lanes, as well as the improvement of general
traffic control at difficult intersections," adds Moosajee.
Signage and ticket vending machines have been identified
as the other two reasons for the poor use of the circular routes. According to
an investigation by the BRT project office, bus stops will require bolder
signage to make identification easier, and there is a lack of shops around the
stations willing to put up ticket vending machines and signage.
Running smoothly for 2010
The inner city circular routes were originally designed to cater for the distribution
of trunk route passengers throughout the CBD as well as provide an alternative
mode of inner city mobility for business people.
"BRT was never intended to replace other forms of
transport. It is meant to complement [these] as part of an integrated transport
system," Modingoane reiterates, adding that the reintroduction will compliment
the entire Rea Vaya phase 1A, which will function during the 2010 FIFA World
Cup™.
Moosajee confirms that the full phase 1A service will be
rolled out in the first quarter of next year. "This service will be run by a
taxi-owned bus operating company, the next important milestone in the roll out
of the Rea Vaya BRT," she says.
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