GOOD statement by Brett Herron
GOOD: City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
14 October 2021
The DA’s announcement that it wants the City of Cape Town to assume responsibility for Metrorail is GOOD. In fact, it was proposed four years ago, when the GOOD team was in charge of the City. On 26 October 2017, I took a 90-page business plan for the assignment of the rail function to the Council for approval.
The plan was informed by the need to get the commuter rail system back on track, and responded to Department of Transport’s (DoT) National Rail Policy Draft White Paper of June 2017 (White Paper).
The White Paper stated that “around the world, urban rail generally has always been a local government function. It is better managed at local level by people who are in touch with local needs”.
On presenting the plan, I said: “For the City to fix passenger rail we will have to take over all of the assets required to provide the service – from the stations and the land the assets are located on, to the tracks, signalling system, and the existing and new rolling stock to be allocated to Cape Town through the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (PRASA) recapitalisation programme.”
It was not a proposal to take over the operations of Metrorail but rather an extension of the City of Cape Town’s role as a “contracting authority” – which is the City’s role in the operations of the MyCiTi bus system.
I said at the time: “The City must be granted the authority for drawing up and awarding the operating contracts to those rail operators who will be running the six existing commuter lines, and all future lines.”
Instead of regurgitating the old proposal, the DA should explain to voters why it didn’t implement the plan, and why it collapsed the city’s single transport authority at the first council meeting after my resignation as a councillor in 2018.
I am concerned that those announcing the “taking over of Metrorail” lack real understanding of City’s roles in facilitating land based public transport solutions, or the applicable legislation and white paper.
The single transport authority is the starting point. None of the transport functions envisaged in the National Land Transport Act and the White Paper can be implemented without a capacitated transport authority under the City’s management.
Rather than sprout naïve election campaign promises, the DA must take responsibility for Cape Town’s public transport meltdown – not only rail, but MyCiti, too.
Public transport is the backbone and the lifeblood of any well-functioning City.
In Cape Town, the poor have been chased to the outskirts of the city. They are forced to spend unconscionable proportions of their income, as well as countless hours of their lives, simply to travel to work on what is often unreliable and unsafe public transport.
But it is not only the poor that need to benefit from enhanced public transport. We need to make public transport a viable alternative for car owners in order to ease congestion, fight climate change and give more mobility to our economy.
We came so close in Cape Town to comprehensively restructuring our public transport systems to create a cheaper and more efficient service. We are committed to picking up the pieces where we left off to achieve this goal. We don’t need to reinvent or repackage or re-spin the wheel.
Included in our plan was an investigation into alternative rail solutions such as light rail, sky rail, monorail, and urban cable car.
Alternative rail solutions could be implemented as part of the City’s comprehensive integrated transport plan or in areas where they could be more economically viable than other modes of public transport, in particular:
- the Cape Town International Airport Rail Link
- an alternative rail solution along the southern corridor to reduce congestion through increasing the capacity of the rail market share as road-based transport solutions are not viable due to land constraints
- an alternative rail solution for the northern suburbs where commuters’ options for public transport services are currently limited.
A GOOD-led City of Cape Town will:
- Re-establish the Transport Authority and integrate MyCiTi, Golden Arrow and Metrorail. This will allow for a single-ticket system (instead of commuters having to pay more every time they switch modes), one scheduled public transport network (digitally available) and better governance;
- Within the Transport Authority, we will seek the devolution of the rail network so that the city is the contracting authority with Metrorail. Where Metrorail can’t meet the demand, we will issue tenders for other operators to operate on the network.
- We will work with Prasa and Metrorail to reopen the Central Line – including facilitating the land swop that Prasa has requested to enable them to relocate structures encroaching into the rail reserve;
- Relationships with the MyCiTi N2 Express partners will be rebuilt– and the taxi industry in particular – and get the service back up and running;
- We will complete the rail plan investigation for light-rail, monorail services – fast tracking some BRT routes that have sufficient demand to support private concessions to build, operate and manage alternative rail.
Media enquiries:
Ms Fiona Furey, Communications Director: City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
Cell: 0722455803
Email: fionaf@forgood.org.za
Mr Wilfred Solomons, Campaign Manager: City of Cape Town Mayoral Candidate
Cell: 0847117709
Email: wilfreds@forgood.org.za