Vaughan Mostert’s letter challenged transport minister Barbara Creecy’s plan for the expansion of urban rail, claiming “she has got it wrong” in that a rail system cannot possibly serve the widespread areas of housing (“Creecy on wrong track”, October 29).
However, this comment ignores the dynamic, common to all cities, between ideal residential location and work opportunities that is enabled by efficient “access” (transport).
Cities are historically in a constant state of change, gradual or rapid, as new transport systems are introduced. Commuter transport is one, albeit politically important, component. But movement of goods and services is of critical importance for sustainability. A huge increase in online retail requiring delivery to the door is now an established extra demand on transport.
If one were to prioritise catalysts to change in city settlement dynamics, access or highly efficient transport would be the primary trigger. So, it is not rail services that are chasing after widely dispersed customers. Once installed, access nodes are a magnet toward which customers move. Access to jobs, but also regional hospitals, legal services, city services and sports centres, is a primary need.
With intelligent planning, access nodes (stations) can accommodate development of high residential densities. But varied uses include retail and office development. The potential for greater efficiency for city and citizen is enabled. That is, worldwide, the way city settlement evolves. Even car ownership can be dispensed with.
In SA the obsession with motorway transport in the 1950s and ’60s has left a legacy of dissipated settlements to ever-wider peripheral areas. The cheapest land available to township squatters expanded further accordingly, worsening access to the poorest.
Highway roads enter inner city roads at peak times, while rail transport has been allowed to shrink. The idea of travelling by public transport, once the norm in Cape Town’s suburbs, has also died.
So, Creecy’s planning is acting toward best practice in the future health of our cities and by extension enhancing the country’s economic potential.
Rod Lloyd
Via BusinessLIVE
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