By Anna Cox and staff reporter
Joburg's new Rea Vaya bus rapid transit system has run into double trouble - the inner city routes have been canned and two taxi bosses associated with it have been shot.
Taxi associations involved with the new bus rapid transit system (BRT) have been calling for police protection after the bosses were shot at in the past two weeks.
And the City of Johannesburg yesterday put temporary brakes on the BRT inner-city routes.
Lack of signs, poor salesmanship, insufficient enforcement of traffic rules and lack of interest from commuters were cited for the closure.
The two routes, which started on September 21, will run tomorrow for the last time, but are expected to return early next year.
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"The Soweto/Ellis Park trunk services will continue to operate normally and are not affected by the withdrawal of the Inner City circle distribution routes," said council spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane.
Rea Vaya has not been carrying enough passengers to run a cost-effective service, but yesterday city officials insisted there wasn't a long-term problem.
City of Johannesburg executive director for transportation Lisa Seftel emphasised that the existing service was a test run and that "from that perspective it has been amazing".
Modingoane said the trunk route from Soweto via the Joburg CBD to Ellis Park, using 23 stations, was carrying more than 16 000 commuters daily but the inner city circular routes carried only 200 at best.
Problems included not enough ticket vendors or not enough vendor signs, traffic congestion that made it quicker to walk rather than ride a bus for a few blocks, vehicles parked at bus stops, and bus stops needing bolder signs.
Seftel said the service was running on only 40 buses, while the projected 69 000 passengers was for the full service of 143 buses.
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