Bus Rapid Transit 'to forge ahead'
3 July 2009
South Africa will go ahead with the implementation of it Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system despite taxi operators' rejection of the plan, says the Gauteng department of community safety.
"It is regrettable that the taxi organisations have rejected the government offer with regards to the BRT issue," the department's Thapelo Moiloa said in a statement.
BRT was set to transform the country's transport system, with millions invested and the engineering achievements lauded. "The September deadline will not be revisited unless there are infrastructural challenges. We remain committed to the project, and test runs are key and will not be interrupted," Moiloa said.
The government and taxi operators have been at loggerheads over the introduction of the BRT, supposed to be implemented in June but since set back to September.
Taxi drivers were to be retrained as bus drivers and taxis would be removed from the BRT routes, becoming part of a feeder system instead.
The taxi industry was enraged, saying the government was muscling it out of routes it had developed over decades and considered its own intellectual property.
SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) president Andrew Mthembu wrote on the council's website: "The taxi industry has been the de facto BRT for decades purely on the basis of its convenience, frequency, reliability and efficiency ... and it would consequently be logical to award Santaco the first right of refusal, not only on BRT but on [any] public transport initiatives."
Mthembu said that as a fully black-owned business, the industry had been relegated to the bottom of the black empowerment "food chain", and that a remodelled BRT could reverse this.
South Africa's taxi industry was a "serious poverty alleviation player, providing over 200 000 jobs", besides supporting the country's insurance, petroleum, manufacturing and retail sectors to the tune of billions of rands, Mthembu said.
Given these facts, the government ought to "surrender BRT to the taxi industry and take [a] regulatory role."
Sapa
