Johannesburg - Nxumalo
Ndlovu used to catch a bus from his home in Alexandra township
to his job in Sandton, a posh city business district.
But with heavy traffic slowing down the 5-kilometre commute
he’s found a new way to work: A pioneering township bike rental
scheme.
“I use the bike because I don’t want to waste my time
sitting in a slow-moving bus,” said the 28-year-old. That he
gets fitter – and saves money – is just a bonus, he said.
“The good thing about cycling is that I get to places
faster. When people are stuck in traffic I ride past them,” he
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Ndlovu, a salesman at a private firm in Sandton is one of
about 100 residents of densely populated Alexandra who now rent
bikes each day to commute to work or school, said Jeffrey
Mulaudzi, the 27-year-old bicycle evangelist who runs the
bike-sharing scheme.
“The initial idea was to help students who had to travel
long distances of up to 8km to school,” Mulaudzi told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But now a range of residents are saving up to 30 percent of
their monthly travel costs by cycling to work instead of
cramming themselves in buses, he said.
Hills to the heavies
Johannesburg, with its hilly terrain, heavy traffic
congestion, sometimes aggressive drivers and reputation for
crime, is not an obvious choice for a cycle scheme.
According to South Africa’s 2014 National Household Travel
Survey, shared minibus taxis are the main means of transport for
42 percent of households in Johannesburg, with private cars,
buses and trains making up much of the rest of the city’s
transport.
But Johannesburg also has some of the world’s best weather.
And as officials put more infrastructure in place to make
cycling safer – including new pedestrian and cycle bridges over
highways– cycling at least short distances is now becoming more
attractive, Mulaudzi said.
The entrepreneur, who grew up poor in Alexandra, has since
2010 run bike tours of the township for tourists. But in 2014 he
launched his broader bike rental scheme, offering cycle rentals
for R2 per trip.
Bike sharing makes sense for the township of half a million
residents, he said, not just because the cost of a bicycle is
beyond the reach of some residents but because most people have
too little space in their homes – many of them barely more than
shacks – to safely store a bike.
Keeping bikes safe at their destination, he said, is usually
not a problem because most users have places to lock them up at
work or school.
He rents the cycles without taking any deposit, he said,
banking on the community trust and goodwill his project has
built up – and on the willingness of the township’s gangs to
confront thieves.
“Chances are very slim for the bikes to be stolen. Even if
someone steals it we can easily track it down” he said.
He hopes eventually to earn enough to insure all the
bicycles, however, he said.
Faster and fitter
Lethabile Thembu, a student in Alexandra who pedals to
school in Johannesburg’s Randburg area each day, said commuting
by bike lets her enjoy the fresh air – and gets her to class
early.
“I don’t regret cycling to school because it keeps me
fitter, every single day,” she said.
She said riding to school, rather than taking a minibus,
saves her mother about R200 each month.
Mulaudzi said not everyone manages Johannesburg’s hills on
the cycles. Plenty, he said, push the bikes up hills and then
ride back down.
David Du Preez, chairman of Johannesburg Urban Cycling
Association, said cycling is a smart way for many people in the
city to get around, particularly if their home or destination is
off major commuter lines.
“A cycling journey may be shorter than a (minibus) taxi if a
commuter’s destination is off the taxi route and the last mile
element is a long walk,” he said.
But heavy traffic, speeding drivers, construction zones and
other threats remain challenges, he said – though new
cycle-friendly infrastructure is helping.
“We want to make Johannesburg a cycle-friendly city by
promoting cycling infrastructure, so that people view cycling as
a valid way of commuting,” he said.