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Shosholoza Meyl

Pictures from the 27-hour trip on the Shosholoza Meyl Trans-Karoo from Johannesburg to Cape Town:

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Read Full Post | June 06 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

Janette Sadik-Khan in Cape Town

UCT’s African Centre for Cities and the Cape Town Partnership hosted a great talk by the transportation and planning commissioners of New York City. Their talk was part of a larger ITDP-organized visit to South Africa. I thoroughly enjoyed Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s remarks (an audio recording of which is available here). In spite of some vocal critics, her extensive implementation of bike and pedestrian improvements in New York has successfully improved traffic safety and Manhattan’s streetscape.… Read the rest

Read Full Post | June 06 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

MyCiti – BRT Launched in Cape Town

The complete Phase 1A of Cape Town’s MyCiTi bus rapid transit system commenced operation in mid-May. It was originally planned to open in April 2010, but only the airport and stadium links were operational in time for last year’s World Cup. The BRT corridor and stations between Cape Town Civic Center and Table View were completed by this past January, but contentious negotiations with minibus taxi and bus operators led to a series of delays.

The political clashes and strikes leading up to MyCiTi’s implementation have their roots in historical difficulties regulating the informal minibus taxi industry:

In deregulating the minibus taxi sector in the late 1980s, and subsequently aiming to return to regulation through formally structured interventions such as the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme and the creation of a government-sanctioned representative structure (ie SANTACO), government has not created conditions conducive to the formalisation of minibus operating or business practices. Past interventions have, rather, contributed to the entrenchment of informal operating practices, the creation of ‘warlord’ figures fervently opposed to a loss of control of the sector; representative structures and operator associations well organised to violently disrupt the transport system and threaten public safety; and fluid loyalties within the industry. [Herrie Schalekamp, ACET Research Officer, in Mobility Magazine]

In one of the meetings I had with Herrie, he described the city as attempting to use BRT as an “infrastructural solution to a social issue.” Attempting to address transportation regulatory and governance issues by building dedicated rights of way and BRT stations would clearly lead to the “imbalance in work streams” characteristic of the project, with physical infrastructure delivered far earlier than operational and organizational structures. Further complicating the efforts to formalize and regulate the taxi industry (which receives no operating subsidies but generally pays no taxes) were unrealistic promises made by politicians and the lack of reliable data on existing operations.

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These two factors combined to confound the process of compensating existing minibus operators. At a national level, politicians promised that existing operators would not suffer any “legitimate loss of revenue” due to the implementation of BRT. Yet in most South African cities, revenue from legitimate minibus taxi operations is difficult to calculate accurately, especially considering the industry’s marginalized origins in the apartheid era. In Cape Town, transportation officials do not know accurately how many minibuses operate, or on what routes they operate, since so many minibuses are unlicensed. Given the promise to compensate existing operators for business taken by the BRT system, Cape Town officials must either offer jobs or monetary compensation to a growing list of (licensed and unlicensed) minibus owners whose routes will be affected.… Read the rest

Read Full Post | May 30 2011 | School Bus Migrations and Transport and Transportation News | 1 Comment » |

Minibus Taxi Strike

A fleet of about 7,500 minibuses transports 332,000 passengers in Cape Town every day. In March, the minibus associations decided to strike as a protest against the government’s impounding of illegal vehicles and the soon-to-open MyCiti BRT system. A number of the 6,300 taxi owners opposed the two-day strike (the Mitchells Plain Taxi Forum did not participate), but for the most part, owners followed the directives of the powerful taxi associations. Violence during the strike supported Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin’s assessment that the industry is “riddled with warlordism.”

Strike-supporters stoned dozens Golden Arrow buses (which are heavily subsidized and, when the minibuses are running, often nearly empty), forcing them to unload on the N2 freeway instead of entering Nyanga and Khayelitsha. Strikers also attacked school transport, injuring special needs students. Thousands of school children who rely on minibuses for their trip to school were stranded. At Trafalgar Secondary, 60% of students were absent during the first day of the strike. The Cape Times went on to report:

“In addition to these and many other incidents of violence, there has been massive intimidation of the bulk of the industry who are opposing the strike,” [MEC Transport] Carlisle said. “As we speak, pro-strike elements are moving into Mitchells Plain where taxis are still operating. There can be no question that their intentions are violent.”

I stayed clear of the bricks and rubber bullets and snapped a couple pictures of some empty taxi ranks, comparing them with similar shots on a normal day:

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Read Full Post | May 24 2011 | School Bus Migrations and Transport | 1 Comment » |

“First Class Treasures”

When I would board Cape Town’s Metrorail, the ticket agents would usually sell me, a white-looking person, a first class ticket. One time, out of curiosity, I asked for a second-class ticket instead. The agent looked at me as if I were crazy and curtly informed me that there are only first and third class tickets. I found the omission of second class nonsensical until I reminded myself that South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal countries (with a Gini coefficient second only to Namibia’s). Given South Africa’s history, its separation of train service into first and third classes, without designating a second class, makes sense.

Cape Town Station embodies this apartheid legacy of inequality and segregation:

The first station developments on the site date back to the mid 1800s when rail began playing an important role in the history of the early settlement at the Cape, the Boer War, the Apartheid Era and the Resistance of 1980′s on. The existing station development dates back to the early 1960s when the Victorian structure on Adderley Street was demolished to make way for a modern building that embodied the policy of apartheid, through the introduction of separate concourses and entrances for people of different population groups… The challenge of the present is to re-interpret the station as a profound symbol of the city and to determine how it will influence what happens at its edges, what effect it will have on the city, what potentials it can realise and what it will represent to the people of Cape Town, South Africa and the rest of the World.

(From PRASA’s Xchange Project).

Most passengers today use the First Class entrances and waiting areas, since the station areas are no longer segregated. The station’s design obscures the Third Class areas, its “back doors,” from passengers using the First Class facilities. To get an insight into these “back doors” that non-whites were forced to use during apartheid, I participated in a tour called “First Class Treasures,” part of Cape Town’s Infecting the City public art festival.

Using spoken word, music, and video, the tour was an “unusual and illuminating journey through the old and new parts of the Cape Town City Station.” Jethro Louw, “the godfather of the spoken word in Cape Town,” provided powerful insights into how the evolution of the railroad and the station heightened social tensions, beginning with South Africa’s first steam locomotives and trains. The tour ended in the Third Class suburban concourse, a neglected hallway with more pigeons than passengers.

It was in the Third Class concourse that I saw a billboard for the Xchange Project, promising investment and renovation for the station. In the project’s Basic Information Document, PRASA outlines four goals:

• Reframe the role of Cape Town Station to become a vibrant, operationally efficient and dignified public transport hub at the heart of Cape Town
• Re-organise spatial and functional arrangements that facilitate operational efficiencies, economic progression while driving spatial and social integration
• Revitalise and re-energise the station as a sustainable destination/gateway to Metropol and hinterland
• Renew public confidence in rail travel

Tellingly, this document also lists the first role of Cape Town Station as “Social and Governance” (ahead of Railway Operations, Transport, Spatial, Economy, and Environment).… Read the rest

Read Full Post | May 24 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

The Cape of Good Hope

Along with a friend from Swarthmore who was taking a vacation from her Peace Corps work in Rwanda, I rented a car in Cape Town for a drive to the Cape of Good Hope. When I wasn’t focused on staying on the left side of the road and shifting gears with my left hand, I got to enjoy some excellent views. The penguins near Simon’s Town were a fun addition, and a sunset drive on Chapman’s Peak Drive was stunning.

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Read Full Post | May 19 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

Robben Island

A small island in Table Bay, windswept Robben Island has some fun wildlife and scenic views. It was also home to one of South Africa’s most infamous jails, where the apartheid government held Nelson Mandela for 18 of the 27 years of his imprisonment. He and hundreds of other political prisoners lived under harsh conditions, but visits today, led by former political prisoners, are imbued with a tone of optimism about their ability to triumph over such conditions.

Prisoners were forced to complete menial tasks in a small limestone quarry on the island. The glare was so bright that many suffered permanent eye damage (for this reason, nobody is allowed to take flash pictures of Nelson Mandela). They dubbed the quarry “The University”, and while they worked there, the future leaders of South Africa debated various political theories. Prisoners made a concerted effort to educate their guards about the injustices of oppression; guards had to be changed often because so many came to agree with the arguments of their prisoners.

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Read Full Post | May 19 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

Metrorail

Cape Town’s Metrorail Stations (by Wwwdigi (Own work) (CC-BY-SA-3.0), via Wikimedia Commons)

Cape Town has historically relied on extensive commuter rail infrastructure to meet commuters’ demands.  The 118 Metrorail stations across the region serve 151 million passengers annually. Of Cape Town commuters who use public transport, 56% rely on Metrorail. Gauteng (Johannesburg and Pretoria), KwaZulu-Natal (Durban), and the Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth and East London) also have Metrorail commuter rail service. Despite the historical importance of rail, the last few decades have seen continued bureaucratic restructuring, chronic underfunding, overcrowding, and severe delays that threaten the viability of commuter rail service in South Africa.

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At a national level, South Africa has a well-developed rail system, with the 10th most trackage of any country in the world. Commuter service began operating in 1890, with a train between Braamfontein and Boksburg. Twenty years later, South African Railways and Harbours (SAR&H) was created as the governmental agency to oversee this growing logistics network and manage the growing passenger demand. Ridership continued to increase through the first half of the 20th Century. The implementation of the Group Areas Act (apartheid) in 1952 “exacerbated the situation immediately, since it forced the Black working class population further onto the periphery of the urban areas, and further from their places of work” (From The People Shall Move). National demand peaked at the end of the 1970s, with nearly 500 million passengers being transported annually at a R250 million annual loss. In an attempt to reduce the amount of subsidies required, SAR&H was reorganized and renamed South African Transport Services (SATS).

In 1990, SATS was reorganized again; Metrorail (a subsidiary of freight operator Transnet) was contracted for operations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, while management was transferred to the newly formed South African Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC). In the decade that followed, train usage declined dramatically, due to the 1989 deregulation of the taxi industry and its subsequent expansion, as well as an epidemic of political violence on trains. As ridership decreased, operational subsidies boomed, reaching R600 million per year by the mid 1990s. Capital expenditures were largely neglected in the preceding decade by the security-focused apartheid government. Except for a rolling stock refurbishment program initiated by SARCC in 1994, the new democratic government similarly ignored rail capital expenditures, favoring more immediate social spending over long term rail investment. In 2006, Metrorail was transferred from Transnet to SARCC. Finally, in 2008 SARCC was renamed the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA). The agency inherited a fleet of 4638 coaches that today has an average age of 40 years.

PRASA must address this legacy of underinvestment while coping with passenger demand that is again growing. Between 2001 and 2008, annual passenger rail trips in Gauteng (the province that includes Pretoria and Johannesburg) increased 22%, to 310 million. Cape Town has seen a 17% increase in commuters over past 2 years.… Read the rest

Read Full Post | May 19 2011 | School Bus Migrations and Transport | 1 Comment » |

Masiphumelele

The Nodars kindly introduced me to the Masiphumelele Library. Over the following weeks, I visited the library to work as a math tutor with Ikamva Youth’s participants, play chess, and help with a couple of websites. On my last Sunday in Cape Town, I visited Masiphumelele’s Anglican Church and was blown away by the Xhosa service and music.

Masiphumelele, also known as Site 5 in Fish Hoek, was originally an apartheid settlement for about 8,000 people. In recent years, it has expanded through informal housing to three times that population. A recurring problem is shack fires that sweep through the community, devouring the wooden shacks before fire crews arrive. I read about one of these fires the first time I heard of Masiphumelele in 2008, and they happen every year. The government’s response (to those whose shacks are formally registered) is to provide care packages, which include four wooden posts and five sheets of corrugated metal so that families can rebuild shacks according to the same fire-prone design. The most recent fire in Masiphumelele, at the beginning of May, killed one resident and left two thousand homeless. Seven of Masiphumelele’s Ikamva Youth participants lost everything they had.… Read the rest

Read Full Post | May 06 2011 | School Bus Migrations | 3 Comments » |

Bus Stop House Shop

Houses for sale at a bus stop along Macassar Road in Khayelitsha

In my project application, I wrote that I hoped to observe the built environment surrounding bus stops. I didn’t imagine that I would pass bus stops where people were actually building the built environment. Indeed, on the UCT field trip I took, I saw a number of people at bus stops assembling shacks for sale. Other memorable parts of the trip included dodging skoro skoros (sedan taxis) and minibuses, seeing live chickens for sale (at prices slightly higher than imported frozen chicken from Brazil), passing the agricultural areas of Philippi (which, thanks to the industrialized food system, sometimes have to plow their produce under despite being adjacent to areas with high levels of food insecurity), noting that streetlamps were lit during the day (to deter potential metal thieves with the threat of electrocution), and learning about Cape Town’s strained water supply system.

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The wood and corrugated metal shacks for sale at the bus stops stick in my mind most clearly. People can buy a shack, cart it to an empty plot along a freeway right-of-way or in someone’s backyard, and move in that afternoon. With a severe housing deficit in the Western Cape, this relatively inexpensive, flexible housing expands to fill all available space in the Cape Flats. When a family receives government housing (almost exclusively single-family units on relatively large lots), they immediately seek to rent out the space in their yard. This practice helps explains why the population densities in places like Khayelitsha are some of the highest in the region. Khayelitsha struck me as a much more sensible name than some of the surrounding neighborhoods, which have apartheid-era names like Village 2 and Site C. I eventually learned that Khayelitsha, Xhosa for “New Home,” stems from the same history; when they were forced to relocate to the township, people referred to it as their new home.

Cape Town population densities (from the City of Cape Town)

The bus stop house shop initially struck me as being quite whimsical. Selling the shacks seemed like an interesting example of entrepreneurship and resourcefulness. The informal settlements comprised of these shacks are home to notable organizing (with Shack and Slum Dwellers International being one example). But slow delivery of basic services like roads, water, and electricity means that these matchbox dwellings are often deadly.

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Read Full Post | May 06 2011 | School Bus Migrations and Transport | 1 Comment » |

Sights of Cape Town

Assorted pictures from the two months I spent living in Cape Town:

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Read Full Post | May 02 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |

Lion’s Head

Sophia (a friend from Swarthmore who is now completing her graduate studies at UCT) invited me to join a group of her friends climbing Lion’s Head one afternoon. An hour-long ascent, which makes use of handholds and ladders in a couple of places, leads to the 2,200 foot summit. There are excellent panoramic views of Cape Town, the Atlantic Ocean, Table Mountain, and a string of peaks called The Twelve Apostles. Unlike many of the other climbers at the top, we did not stay for the full moon to rise (our hunger got the best of us).

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Read Full Post | May 02 2011 | School Bus Migrations | No Comments » |