Johannesburg city council will introduce a five-year plan to improve public transport and relieve traffic congestion in the city. The plan includes high-occupancy vehicle lanes, only for buses, taxis or private cars carrying four people. What do you think?
Johannesburg city council will introduce a five-year plan to improve public transport and relieve traffic congestion.
reported that Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo said the plan was approved at a council meeting on August 21. The council said that about 53 per cent of the city’s commuters used private transport and 47 per cent used public transport. The council wants to encourage more commuters to use public transport, but councillor Parks Tau said that the plan was to improve public transport before it could do this.
He said there would then be financial incentives to use public transport, as well as dedicated bus and high occupancy lanes, where only buses, taxis or private cars carrying four people will be allowed.
Tau said the idea was to integrate rail, bus and taxi transport into one network, with one ticketing system and one livery.
There will be 35 central “hubs” where passengers can switch between the different modes of transport for access to residential areas. There will be an inner city route, where buses will run 17 hours a day at five-minute intervals.
The council also plans to use the benefits of the recapitalisation of the taxi industry. The industry will be switching from the current ageing fleet to 18- and 35-seater minibuses. Tau said he would like to see the 18-seaters running on short, local routes and the 35-seaters on longer routes.
What do you think of this plan?