CAPE TOWN
- SA employs a transport system in which people often spend most of time and money in using the system to gain access to economic opportunities says Professor Mark Zuidgeest of UCT’s Centre for Transport Studies.
Zuidgeest sees the current transport system as unjust and it will not be easily repairable. "it is a result of apartheid spatial planning that never had the interest of the majority of this country’s people in mind," Zuidgeest observes.
As a result, the UCT’s Centre for Transport Studies is understood to be currently undertaking a research which focuses on developing models that quantify and map levels of accessibility in Cape Town.
It is said this will not only allow looking at the spatial dimension of the problem, but also at affordability and temporal availability.
Zuidgeest suggests the following initiatives as ones that could lead to a just transport in Cape Town: public transport reform and renewal, travel demand management, the development towards hybrid public transport systems, the introduction of public transport user-based subsidy schemes, transit-oriented development, and non-motorized transport strategy.
Professor Karel Martens of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology admits that the research he has conducted has been mostly on transport systems of the developed world but in the case of a city like Cape Town he believes the need for a just transport system is equal to or perhaps even greater than other parts of the world.