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Rea Vaya, congestion and transport issues were discussed at length at the Inner City Charter Partnership Forum, which looked at progress in the area.
TRANSPORT was under the spotlight at the eighth Inner City Charter Partnership Forum, with Executive Mayor Amos Masondo giving feedback from various departments on progress made in cutting transport and congestion.
The forum met on 24 November at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, in Newtown. The meeting was chaired by the mayor.
Executive mayor, Amos Masondo chairing the meeting
Talking about Rea Vaya, the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, Rehana Moosajee, the member of the mayoral committee for transport, said the starter service carried about 16 000 people daily, with Carlton Station recording the most passengers at 2 637.
The starter service began at the end of August, with a route from Soweto in the west to Ellis Park in the east. Challenges regarding the quality of dedicated lanes were discussed, with a focus on private cars, and pedestrian and bus lanes. Issues arose when cars turned into streets that had dedicated Rea Vaya lanes.
Moosajee explained the working relationship between the City's transport department and the metro police, which were educating people and enforcing the law. In addition, she pointed out that all staff is employed on a short-term contract since the taxi industry was meant to take over employment.
The City decided to introduce a circular service in the inner city as part of the starter service, which begun running in September with 10 buses. However, the circular service was suspended earlier this month because of various problems. It would start again in the first quarter of next year.
Challenges
These problems included a lack of vendors willing to sell Rea Vaya tickets, a lack of visibility of bus stops, cars parking in loading bays and high levels of traffic congestion. Since only 40 buses ran from Soweto, there were fewer passengers who wanted to move from the trunk route to feeder routes to get to their destinations, said Moosajee.
In response, the City was reviewing the routes and looking into the trunk route, increasing the number of ticket vendors, increased metro police enforcement of bus loading bays, better designated bus stops, and increased marketing.
She explained that transport stakeholders in the inner city included pedestrians, public transport users, which are the commuters on daily trips, long distance visitors and cross boarder visitors, as well as learners coming to schools in the inner city or being transferred in the inner city.
Car users were also stakeholders, including freight vehicles such as delivery trucks and bakkies; public transport operators including buses, minibus taxis, metered taxis, and rail; and property owners and parking garage owners.
Other transport problems comprised pedestrian safety, which included conflict with cars because of the lack of pavement space and crime; congestion; illegal street parking; illegal taxi ranks; lack of sufficient holding and ranking space; and degraded infrastructure and inadequate maintenance of facilities, such as public transport facilities, roads and pavements.
She also spoke about the proposal for the Kazerne redevelopment, cross border operations regarding to public transport prioritisation, Metrobus and Gandhi Square, metered taxis, private car users and congestion.
Enforcement
Masondo asked the metro police to pay special attention to congestion. According to Elginah Ndlovu, the member of the mayoral committee for public safety, a superintendent had been appointed for Region F, in conjunction with the metro police.
The regional director had divided the inner city into four quadrants, and then into hotspots of congestion and construction. About 600 officers impounded cars and arrested those responsible for congestion.
Talking about the foreign nationals in the inner city, Roslynn Greeff, the member of the mayoral committee for development planning and urban management, noted that work was ongoing at the Moth Building to accommodate immigrants. The City was working towards finding transitional accommodation as well as helping them at the Migrants' Helpdesk.
Issues raised by the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC) were addressed by Santhurie Naidoo, the City's inner city programme manager. Outstanding issues were Pikitup tariffs; City Power not passing credits and electricity being cut off without notice; an inability to pass refunds; the Inner City Property Scheme; the roll out of the linear markets; and the management of informal trading. "These issues are being dealt with on a one to one basis."
The Informal Traders Forum had an issue with the Trading Policy. It was noted that traders would be allocated specific sites from which to trade and would get the relevant permits. It was agreed that traders needed to belong to a bigger unit.
JICBC
Anne Steffny, the director of the JICBC, said the coalition was officially established as a section 21 company - a non-profit organistion - in 1998 with the aim of "ensuring economic growth and the revitalisation of the urban environment so as to deliver an improvement in the quality of life for all inner city stakeholders and role players".
Its primary function was to create an environment for investment in the inner city. For the past 10 years, the JICBC had worked on behalf of inner city property owners, developers and corporate bodies, as well as committees, utilities and agencies like the City of Johannesburg, to share information, ideas and advice.
It was a member of the Inner City Charter Partnership Forum, and was appointed by the Central Johannesburg Partnership to manage its dealings. The JICBC worked with the City to deliver the commitments in the Inner City Regeneration Charter.
There were six Charter Focus Forums; namely, urban management, safety and security; public space, arts, culture and heritage; social and community development; transportation; residential development; and economic development.
Steffny explained the membership structure of the organisation, which had decided to expand its membership and representation to respond to a wide base of stakeholder interests and requirements; more about the CJP; its commitments to public space management and upgrades; its investments; other private sector sponsored initiatives; and the challenges facing the JICBC.
Concluding the forum meeting, Masondo said all entities in the city, be they public or private companies or government organisations, should work together so that the city could benefit.
The Inner City Partnership Forum was launched in November 2007, to promote participation in the inner city.
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