Transport minister Barbara Creecy doesn’t deserve any congratulations for trying to revive passenger rail transport in SA (“Flowers for Creecy”, October 28).
With only about 10% of South Africans living near a station, 600-million rail passengers by 2030 is simply not going to happen.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. SA is not a railway friendly country. We must stop blaming Covid for the collapse of passenger rail. That process started years before Covid arrived and was allowed to happen without a peep from anyone in charge.
The transport minister’s number one priority is to start fixing the minibus taxi and bus industries so that they can firstly start carrying at least 1-million people every day who are presently travelling by car, and secondly start feeding passengers into and away from railway stations, starting before the first train of the day arrives and finishing after the last train has left.
Let’s see how far we get with that suggestion.
Vaughan Mostert
Northgate
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