2005-11-28,+Gautrain,+slow+down,+think+through,+Cronin,+S+Times

Sunday Times, Business, Johannesburg, 27/11/2005

= Gautrain: let’s slow down and think it through =

GUEST COLUMN, **JEREMY CRONIN**

‘We would spend R20-billion [on the Gautrain] but the Ben Schoeman freeway would be more congested by 2010 than it is now’

I WAS briefly a Gautrain enthusiast. In 2000 the project to build a rapid-transit rail system was mooted by the Gauteng provincial government. Here was a bold plan to build a flagship public transport project. The costs and operating risks, we were told, would be borne primarily by the private sector. This seemed a fine example of the developmental state driving a strategic vision while harnessing the resources of the private sector.

Later I came across Gautrain project leader Jack van der Merwe and asked a few bland questions.

Were they factoring-in connections to other transport modes? I asked. With the infectious enthusiasm and disdainful imperiousness that he has brought to the project, Van der Merwe told me to go check the website.

I didn’t find answers there. As the months went by I had growing concerns. But the Gautrain was a provincial project. Those of us on the transport portfolio committee in the national assembly felt it would be inappropriate to dive headlong into oversight activity.

Then, on October 25 this year, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced that the Gautrain now had national status. As the projected construction costs soared from R7-billion to R20-billion the province’s equitable share was in danger of being overwhelmed by a single project. So the burden of public cost would be shifted to the national budget.

Manuel’s announcement in parliament immediately placed a serious responsibility on the transport portfolio committee.

As a committee we had a near-impossible task. Parliament was about to go into recess. The cabinet, we were told, would make a final decision on the Gautrain in a matter of weeks.

We hurriedly arranged two mornings of public hearings. In the week in which we were due to begin the hearings, Van der Merwe added more pressure.

South Africa, he said, “had a moral and legal obligation to Fifa” [the governing body of world soccer] to complete the Gautrain in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup finals. Excavations, he asserted, would start in January next year.

So that is where we began, with soccer. We checked South Africa’s bid book presentation to Fifa — no reference whatsoever to the Gautrain there. We asked government officials involved in the preparations for the World Cup finals. Same result. Eventually, Van der Merwe conceded at the hearings that the Gautrain project should not be conflated with the World Cup finals.

Beyond the 2010 hype, the project is essentially about relieving congestion on the N1 Ben Schoeman highway between Johannesburg and Tshwane. Traffic volumes, we are told, are growing at 7% a year. The project aims to attract about 20% of car users away from the Ben Schoeman.

Herein lies the rub. Given a 7% yearly increase, a 20% reduction of car users would see us spending R20-billion but the Ben Schoeman would still be more congested by 2010 than it is now.

True, there are serious congestion problems on this road but there are plenty of other major routes in Gauteng that are congested. You can’t solve congestion with a stand-alone project. You need an integrated approach to transport and land use.

The transport plan of the City of Johannesburg politely makes this point: “Whilst major public transport initiatives such as Gautrain can be expected to attract private-transport users, this attraction will at best only slow down the growth in private-transport demand (that is, private-transport demand will continue to grow, albeit at a marginally reduced rate.)”

Having set itself up as a project to lure relatively well-heeled motorists off the N1, the Gautrain has made a series of choices: a rail gauge that permits higher speeds but that is not compatible with the rest of our rail system, train sets that can be manufactured only in Europe (while our own train manufacturers are working at well below capacity) and a route that goes from Park Station through Sandton and reaches Pretoria Station only to eschew proceeding into the CBD, taking instead a quick east bend to Hatfield.

Apart from Alexandra, which Gautrain’s Jo’burg international airport branch line delicately skirts, all the other major Gauteng townships are well over the horizon. You can sink into the plush seats of the Gautrain and imagine you are in Europe.

The Gautrain project optimistically hopes to achieve a ridership of about 60000 daily by 2010. According to the recent National Household Travel Survey, seven million South Africans move on buses, taxis and by Metrorail every weekday.

Now compare the projected R20-billion construction costs for the Gautrain’s 60000 relatively affluent passengers with the planned capital spending on modes being used by seven million commuters daily. This year’s budget allocates R250-million, R315-million and R320-million for each of the next three years to taxi recapitalisation. The same budget allocates R350-million for the ailing passenger rail infrastructure over the same three years.

In Gauteng, 70% of households have no access to cars. Unlike the target Gautrain ridership, these are households that are captive to existing public transport modes, which are typically under-funded, unreliable, unsafe and generally stressful.

Against this background, the transport portfolio committee has recommended to the cabinet that the Gautrain project, in its present form, be dropped. At the very least, more time should be taken to assess how much greater connectivity to other modes and to township commuters could be achieved.

This is an option but I am sceptical that effective connectivity can be retrofitted in this way. The best approach is to move away from single-project tunnel vision and focus on the whole of Gauteng, working with metros, integrating transport and land use, and ensuring financial devolution.

The cabinet will make a decision shortly. But three important things have happened in the past few weeks. There has finally been a lively national debate on the merits of the Gautrain. The Gauteng government has announced the imminent establishment of an overarching transport authority. And Trevor Manuel has indicated that there is R20-billion available for … did he say the Gautrain? Or was it for long-suffering public transport in general?

Cronin is an ANC MP and chairman of Parliament’s transport portfolio committee.