Cape Town - The MyCiti bus service has become embroiled in a race row, with Cosatu and the City of Cape Town at loggerheads over the alleged “discriminatory” rollout of routes to more affluent areas.
Cosatu has appealed to the Equality Court to make more Golden Arrow buses available in areas with public transport “shortcomings”, and to speed up its delivery of MyCiTi bus stations in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.
Cosatu’s Tony Ehrenreich said: “The notion of substantial equality must however be embraced inside the city services. Cosatu will continue to insist on a system that is substantively as fair as the system in the wealthy areas, for all.”
But Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for Transport for Cape Town, on Wednesday slammed Cosatu for making “dishonest” and “misleading” statements about its demands to the Equality Court.
He said Ehrenreich had in fact offered to settle the matter if Transport for Cape Town added 20 Golden Arrow Bus Service buses to the N2 Express service.
But this suggestion was “absurd”, as the city had already confirmed that it would add 20 18-metre low-floor buses to the route next year, said Herron.
Furthermore, the city’s decision to launch the MyCiTi service along the West Coast corridor to Atlantis was a response to that community’s lack of mass rapid public transport options.
“Cosatu’s claims that this amounts to discrimination against the communities of the Cape Flats is ignorant and informed by its own political narrative.”
He said Cosatu was “desperate to undermine and scuttle the project” to “further the ANC’s narrative”.
“As I have said numerous times before, the people of Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain, the affected taxi industry, GABS, the Khayelitsha Development Forum and the Khayelitsha Business Forum have welcomed the city’s rollout of the MyCiTi N2 Express service…”
But Ehrenreich said buses were standing unused at the Golden Arrow depot that could be used now to alleviate congestion on the N2 Express routes.
Ehrenreich had also asked for a pay-in-cash system on board the buses that would make it easier for commuters to use the service.
This too was “absurd”, said Herron as the use of cards instead of cash on public transport was a national government requirement.
“There is no doubt that every community in the city is in desperate need of much improved public transport. No matter where the city rolled out its first routes there would always have been a legitimate cry for the service to be rolled out elsewhere.”
Cape Argus