GOOD speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
18 May 2022
Note: This is the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s Parliamentary Budget Vote on Transport.
Those with functional memories will recall the build-up up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and our resolution to use the event as a springboard to develop an effective public transport system.
We promulgated a National Land Transport Act which represented an important policy shift. According to the Minister, the Act was intended to consolidate land transport functions and locate them in the appropriate spheres of government – the local sphere.
As the football extravaganza drew near, new bus and rail networks were developed in some cities and, for the first time, it appeared that the taxi industry was being afforded a rightful seat at the table of decision-makers and implementers.
But 13 years later we must ask: What height has the springboard enabled us to reach? How far has our policy shift shifted conditions on the ground?
The truth is that the new legislation has failed to achieve its goals because it has never been fully embraced by the revolving doors of management at the Department of Transport. None of the seven Ministers who have occupied the throne at Transport since 2009 have hung around long enough to fully comprehend it, let alone get down to implementation.
Instead of using the Act to fix the system, what we have witnessed over the past dozen years has been the inexorable collapse of scheduled mass public transport across the country.
Where have the pre-World Cup discussions gone? The ones about a hierarchy of modes, with commuter rail identified to provide the backbone of local public transport, supported by bus rapid transit (BRT). With efficient, seamless and affordable connections, integrated with other scheduled bus services and the mini-bus taxi industry.
What we have instead is a collapsed commuter rail system and declining BRT systems. In the absence of regular and reliable rail, the idea of mass rapid connectors and development of meaningful BRT networks cannot work.
We have an inverted hierarchy of modal choice, with minibus taxis providing the backbone of public transport and state-backed modalities on the brink of collapse.
The Department of Transport should be ashamed to report the dramatic decline of rail and bus users between 2013 and 2020 in its annual performance plan.
If it wasn’t for taxis, the bitter truth is, there’d be virtually no public transport system left – and ideas of growing the economy would have to be put on hold.
Devolving public transport networks and the functions of local government is not just the law in South Africa, it is also a key recommendation of the Integrated Urban Development Framework.
We must rescue the commuter rail system by securing the rail reserves through built environment interventions; fast-track the rail modernisation programme; and devolve the rail networks, incrementally, to cities along with rail operating subsidies.
We must permit cities to contract with Metrorail and other private operators; devolve scheduled bus contracting functions, along with their subsidies, to cities with BRTs so that the two systems can be integrated.
We must fast-track the rollout of the BRT, where viable, and we must develop a new approach to the minibus taxi operating licensing regime that acknowledges taxis’ functional role in the economy.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Samkelo Mgobozi, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0792315977 (WhatsApp)/0829684021 (calls)
Email: samm@forgood.org.za