A mission to curtail congestion

©Diriye Amey via 123RF

Capetonians can add their ideas by Friday, 28 October 2016 to suggestions already put forward, such as working flexihours or compressed work weeks‚ staggered school starting times‚ carpooling and using public transport and bicycles.

Building together

With the United Nations estimating that 71.3% of South Africa’s population will live in urban areas by 2030, Jacques van Embden, the MD and Co-Founder of urban property development brand, Blok, says that this will impact congestion even further. “This density needs to be supported by a strong and safe network of public and private transport.”

He suggests that government, private landowners, and urban developers in the private sector work in partnership to produce medium to high rise residential developments in urban areas along public transport routes. “In addition to acquiring privately-owned land, we would need government to facilitate development in these areas and continuously upgrade the various modes of public transport along these nodes as well as incentivise the use of these forms of transport.”

Enlisting the private sector

Van Embden acknowledges that public transport needs to be supplemented by other affordable, yet safe, means of ensuring that people can make their way through the city and its surrounds. “I believe this will require more investment and solutions from the private sector and public.”

A vision with a mission

He proposes setting a tangible congestion-curbing vision for the city. “This has proven effective in other cities across the world, such as San Francisco which set the goal of reducing private auto travel by 50% by the year 2018. The aim was achieved in 2015 by promoting the use of public transport, bicycling and walking. Now plans are in place to decrease the number of cars on the road even further. The starting point, however, was the establishment of a vision,” shares van Embden.

“Whether we use public transport, carpool, cycle or walk, not only will we still be able to get from A to B quicker, but do so with less impact on the environment. What’s more, these modes of transport enable us as citizens to interact more closely with each other, resulting in Cape Town being a more connected city in every sense of the word,” concludes van Embden.