Revolution+of+wheeled+variety+needed,+Sean+Muller,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 13 July 2006
=Revolution of wheeled variety needed=


 * Sean Muller**

THE sparks that flew last year as the Gautrain project was pushed through the cabinet ignited heated debate — much of it on the pages of this newspaper. For perhaps the first time since 1994, there was a reason for people to begin actively thinking about what to do about public transport in SA. The substantial financial and political commitments to the project highlighted the extreme lack of priority given to so many aspects of the transport system.

Subsequently, however, this interest has faded greatly, kept alive only by the looming challenge of the World Cup 2010. Until recently, that is, when labour federation Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP) announced that their Red October campaign this year would focus on public transport.

On this, these organisations are spot on: getting the public transport system we need is going to require a revolution. Not so much a revolution in policy — much of which is already good — but in two other areas. The first is policy implementation, which, with a few notable exceptions, has been atrocious. More important, perhaps, it will require a revolution in the collective mind-set, especially of those in society’s upper echelons.

It is often said that SA has a “car culture” to rival even the US, but do we realise how deeply entrenched it is? Companies provide car allowances but not travel allow-ances — punishing those who use public transport. Few employers provide the most basic facilities for cycle commuters, while cyclists exist in the margins of road traffic laws.

Because of a statistical association, vehicle sales are a leading indicator of economic growth; and so we cheer even as our roads become more congested, more cars carry only their drivers, and only those who have no alternative use public transport.

Our oil dependency increases even as the petrol price climbs ever higher, driving government to compromise its moral stance on foreign policy by seducing dictators to secure cheap oil. The jobs created by the burgeoning automotive industry are great, but no reason for our leaders to pretend we do not need a huge shift away from private motor vehicles and towards public transport.

In addition, even with greater awareness of the interrelation between urban planning and transport, we continue to see the kind of widely spread, low-density development that increases transport costs for the poor and makes a lifestyle of any affluence possible only with possession of a motor vehicle.

A driver’s licence remains a standard job requirement at all but the most menial levels but unless you have been to a developed country, where many (even most) skilled workers take public transport, you would not even think to wonder why.

The transport department is on the right track with the taxi recapitalisation programme — when it finally gets off the ground — and with the intention to devolve responsibility for passenger rail to provincial or local authorities. Yet, at the higher levels of government, the treasury and the Presidency in particular, there seems to be little interest. One suspects this is in no small part due to the very social distance the existence of good public transport can reduce.

Take an example: not too long ago both the president and the finance minister criticised the unemployment figures. The former wanted to know where all these millions were; why do we not see them on the streets of our cities? Well, assuming he is right — and one wonders when last the president had cause to walk through any of our city streets, bustling with hawkers who can only barely be classified as “employed” — how does he think the unemployed would get on to these streets, when a return taxi fare might cost them upwards of R20, with little prospect of finding work?

The only time I can recall the president talking about public transport (the business community’s concerns with freight transport get more urgent attention) in any serious way was when he was condemning the burning of trains by commuters. In that context one has to agree, but it would be nice to see such vociferous support for dealing with the causes of that frustration.

Transport is a societal issue. It is about time we recognised that we need a society where being successful and owning a gas-guzzling car are not equivalent; where the less affluent are not spending vast portions of their precious time and income just to physically enter the economy; where it is not about Mercedes-Benzes kicking up dust in the face of ordinary people as they wait for an unroadworthy taxi.

Cosatu and the SACP aim to get a million signatures for their campaign; one suspects they will have no trouble at all. This is one revolution we should all be queuing up for.


 * Muller is an economics masters student at the University of Cape Town. In 2004 he completed a one-year internship as a public policy partnership fellow in the transport department’s economic analysis unit. He writes in his personal capacity.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A232004**

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