Joburg plan to cut down on car usage

City transport plan will place a greater emphasis on public transport and will aim to discourage the use of private cars. File photo: Antoine de Ras.

City transport plan will place a greater emphasis on public transport and will aim to discourage the use of private cars. File photo: Antoine de Ras.

Published May 10, 2013

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Joburg authorities are going to make it increasingly difficult for cars to be used in the city in a bid to improve public transport and health.

In his State of the City address yesterday, mayor Parks Tau revealed plans to reduce residents’ reliance on private cars, including mammoth spending on high-density housing infrastructure along public transport routes and improved public transport.

“The urban design will strongly encourage this move away from private car usage,” Tau said at Wits University.

A total of R100 billion will be spent on infrastructure in the city over the next 10 years, including R30bn over the next three years.

Although he did not detail the way the money would be used, he said one of the plans was to create “corridors of freedom”.

These would be mixed-use areas of high-density residential buildings located side by side with spaces for office, retail and recreational use.

These communities will reduce travel times to work and reduce low-density housing on the fringes of the city, according to Tau.

“Urban design is taking place along some of these places,” he said at a media conference after his speech.

PEDESTRIAN-FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOODS

“Parking on street kerbs will be limited and traffic-calming measures will make it increasingly difficult for private vehicles to enter the new pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods,” said the mayor.

These communities would also be linked with bicycle and pedestrian lanes, which had the double benefit of reducing traffic and improving health, which Tau said was a major problem facing people living in Joburg.

Tau also revealed that the next phase of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit route should be operational by October. It will start in Soweto and pass through Noordgesig, New Canada, Pennyville, Bosmont, Coronationville, Newclare, Westbury, Westdene, Melville, Auckland Park and Parktown, and link to the CBD.

Programmes to develop different housing options along the BRT routes would also be looked at “in the next year”, said Tau.

This would also reduce travelling times and decrease the cost of travel, which ate up a “disproportionately high percentage” of residents’ income in the city, according to Tau.

“Residents will be given a wider range of choices of housing, with a strong emphasis on rental accommodation in well-located developments,” he added.

Tau did address problems many Joburgers had complained to him about, including service at customer centres, the maintenance of council flats, corruption, and rising fuel and electricity prices.

 

He said they had reduced the average waiting time of calls to the city from 164 to 24 seconds, initiated criminal and disciplinary actions against corrupt officials, and improved their billing collection to 91 percent. -The Star

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