Mobility in the Gauteng City-Region Edited by Chris Wray and Graeme Gotz Chapter contributions by Christo Venter, Willem Badenhorst, Guy Trangoš and Christina Culwick COVER IMAGE: EASTERLY VIEW OF THE NEW REA VAYA BUS RAPID TRANSIT ROUTE ALONG KINGSWAY AVENUE IN JOHANNESBURG, LINKING THE UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG AND THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND Mobility in the Gauteng City-Region July 2014 ISBN 978-0-602-620105-2 Edited by: Chris Wray and Graeme Gotz Chapter contributions: Graeme Gotz and Chris Wray Christo Venter and Willem Badenhorst Guy Trangoš Christina Culwick Other contributions: Background report commissioned from University of Johannesburg staff and students and contracted specialists: Tracey McKay, Zach Simpson, Kerry Chipp, Naeem Patel, Alutious Sithole and Ruan van den Berg Photographic images by Potsiso Phasha, Christina Culwick, ITL Communication & Design and various contributors to a photographic competition run by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) in 2013 (credits given with images) The image on page 104 is the copyright of Media Club South Africa and Gautrain; it may not be used for any promotional, advertising or merchandising use, and may not be materially altered, nor may its editorial integrity be compromised. Published by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), a partnership of the University of Johannesburg, the Copyright © Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and the Design and layout: www.itldesign.co.za Gauteng Provincial Government. Contents Chapter 1 Introduction: A new ‘golden era’ for transport planning? 1 Chapter 2 2011 GCRO Quality of Life Survey: Analysis of transport data 15 Chapter 3 Constructing a Quality of Transport Index: Gauteng’s priority townships 59 Chapter 4 New spaces of transport in the Gauteng City-Region: A Gautrain analysis 85 Chapter 5 Transitions to non-motorised transport in Gauteng 131 Chapter 6 A photo essay: Non-motorised transport – forging connections across space and society 153 References 170 Tables 172 Figures 172 ANTHONY GOTZ ORIGINAL PHOTO: THEO KHUVUTLU CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTIon: A new ‘Golden ERA’ fOR TRANSPORT PLANNING? Introduction: A new ‘golden era’ for transport planning? GRAEME GOTZ AND CHRIS WRAY A key factor in understanding a functional city-region is the daily flows of people between its constituent parts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, regards the commuter field as a key criterion for defining the extent of a metro-region (OECD, 2011). Traffic flow is also an important urban efficiency concern, as congestion impacts the costs of doing business, which in turn affects regional competitiveness. Congestion is furthermore a key social issue, as long commutes on poorly maintained transit infrastructure affect the quality of life of residents. Transport affordability and access are critical development concerns: high day-to-day costs of travel, the unavailability of public transport in many peripheral areas, and poor home-to-work connections because of badly defined routes and weak intermodal integration all impact severely on the poor, especially in a sprawling city-region where poverty and spatial dislocation are often synonymous. In addition, transport can be a major driver of environmental problems such as air pollution and climate change if road-based modes lead to high carbon emissions. Alternatively, transport can lead to greater urban sustainability if, for example, a city’s metabolic rate of liquid fuel consumption can be reduced though measures that reduce car-based travel. Lastly, transport infrastructure, especially that developed for public transport, can have important symbolic and cultural effects, either working productively to bring people together in shared public space, or negatively to further entrench societal divisions. For all of these reasons it is important to delineate the existing flows of traffic across the Gauteng City-Region (GCR); to understand the challenges of transport efficiency, access and affordability; and to gauge the impact of key transport interventions like the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Programme and associated e-tolling, and municipal Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure. This report on Mobility in the Gauteng City-Region has been written in a remarkable moment in the history of transport development in Gauteng. On the one hand the region appears to be in a new ‘golden era’ of transit infrastructure design and investment, as well as long-term planning for ever-growing commuter transport needs. On the other hand, the transport difficulties faced by the GCR’s fast-growing population, as well as the many spatial, social, economic and environmental challenges that flow from the region-wide architecture of this population’s daily commuting, appear to be growing ever more acute. 1 MOBILITY IN THE GAUTENG CITY-REGION 1.1 A new ‘golden era’ for transport planning? At various points in its history the GCR’s urban form has • BRT. Various BRT systems – such as that illustrated on upgrade the signalling system, with a R1 billion first phase been substantially shaped by large transport infrastructure the front cover of this report – are being planned and set to be completed in 2016. Seventy-three stations in investments. T. J. Fair and E. W. Mallows (1959) note how the implemented in Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities: Gauteng will eventually be upgraded, with a number (such intersection of three railway lines from the coast in the mid Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane. They are jointly as Vereeniging, Germiston, Krugersdorp and Pretoria) to late-1890s gave prominence to Germiston, and provided a funded by local and national government. The City of identified for short-term investment. ‘broad framework’ for the region’s future settlement pattern: Johannesburg has implemented the first of these systems, • Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. Led by the “The polynuclear structure, the east-west mining axis and the so-called Rea Vaya BRT. Construction started in 2007 South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL), the the north-south communications axis had emerged. The and phase 1A – connecting Soweto and the Johannesburg Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project is a multi-billion sum of these factors had produced the now clearly-defined inner city – was completed in 2009. Phase 1B was finalised rand upgrade of Gauteng’s freeways. Initiated in 2007, cruciform nature of the structure built around these two in early 2014. It also connects the Johannesburg inner city the project has involved the widening of a number of dominant axes” (Fair and Mallows, 1959, p.130). Alan Mabin to Soweto but runs to the north past the University of the highways and the redevelopment of key interchanges, (2013, p.29) traces how in the late 1960s and 70s a decade Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Johannesburg which have historically been the cause of bottlenecks in of road-infrastructure focused highway planning led to “the (UJ). Construction on phase 1C, which will link Alexandra traffic flow. Future phases of the project envisage further demarcation of a veritable spaghetti of proposed freeway and Sandton to the existing network, was launched in April redevelopment and the construction of new freeway links. routes.” This intermetropolitan road network cemented the 2014. While it has already had a significant positive impact on conception of a functional region, and shifted the region’s congestion on the region’s highway network, the project centres of gravity, providing structuring elements that by- • Implementation of a Tshwane BRT system, to be named has not been without controversy because of the associated passed some older centres while favouring development A Re Yeng, is also at an advanced stage. Construction electronic or ‘open-road’ tolling, meant to recoup the costs along key corridors in the north (Mabin, 2013). started in April 2013, and a first seven kilometre leg will be completed in 2014. The first A Re Yeng bus was unveiled to of the new infrastructure. The introduction of e-tolls has In the mid to late-2000s, after decades of underinvestment, the public in April 2014. been marked by public protests and payment avoidance by the GCR appeared to enter a new, dramatically more many users. It might also be critiqued for being internally energetic era of transit planning and road and public- • Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) rail contradictory, encouraging, at the same time, more car- transport infrastructure development. A host of recent major modernisation. PRASA is undertaking a complete overhaul based travel through its improved road infrastructure as projects and innovative plans testify to this new ‘golden era’ of its commuter rail systems in Gauteng, following many well as a shift to public transport through the taxing of of transport planning: years of underinvestment. Indicatively, the last new trains road users. procured for the South African passenger rail network • Municipal Integrated Transport Plans (ITPs). Matching the • The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link. Led by the Gauteng were bought in the mid-1980s, and 98% of the current large-scale infrastructure projects underway there has been Provincial Government (GPG), with a capital cost to date rolling stock is older than that (PRASA, 2012). In Gauteng, a series of new generation transport plans developed in of some R25 billion, the Gautrain fast-rail network is one the modernisation programme will focus on the key both local and provincial spheres of government. A number South Africa’s largest transport infrastructure investments. Mabopane-Pretoria-Germiston-Johannesburg-Soweto of municipal ITPs, as required by law, were formulated for Eighty kilometres of track, 15km of it underground, and corridor. It will see a combination of new rolling stock, the the period 2003-2008, but these are now well out of date. ten stations now knit together the city-region’s key urban upgrading of track and signalling infrastructure and the However, Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities are in the centres. The O.R. Tambo International Airport to Sandton redevelopment of stations.