Taxis’ illegal parking poses a serious safety risk to all
Community members calls meeting with municipality.
MBOMBELA – For more than four years privately owned taxis have been parking illegally on the corner of the Nelacres Shopping Centre. Residents and businesses in the area have had enough and have called a meeting with Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) to address this serious issue.
About 20 taxis can be seen on the pavement on the outskirts of Nelacres’ parking lot. They transport pupils to Lowveld High School (LHS) in the mornings and leave for KaNyamazane and KaBokweni in the afternoons. Pupils from areas surrounding the city also use the taxis to get to school. However, they are parked there all day, which upsets business owners and the governing bodies of the four schools in the area.
“Any member of the public who parks on the sidewalk illegally, will immediately be fined but the taxis aren’t,” says Ms Felicity Lange, DA ward councillor of the area. “The whole sidewalk is full of rubbish and patrons no longer feel safe going to the centre.”
Pupils’ safety is another major concern. According to Lange the taxis stop on a yellow cross in the road to pick up and drop off pupils. “It puts them at risk of getting run over.”
Lange says the problem has persisted for many years. There is a small slipway in front of LHS which serves as a bus stop, but according to community member and former MLM employee Mr Frans Nyati,
it is too small to accommodate all the taxis which drop pupils off at school. “If they cannot use that space and have no choice but to use the sidewalk, they should at the very least pay a fee every month,” he said.
The attempts of school governing bodies and business owners to keep them off the grassy pavements have been futile. “We’ve erected poles there to prevent them from coming onto the pavement but they just knock them down,” said Nelacres caretaker Mr Jan de Vos. “We’ve complained to MLM and the taxi owners association but in vain. The taxis are not affiliated with the taxi owners’ association, which makes it even more difficult to hold someone accountable.”
A spokesman for LHS said they had reported the issue to the traffic department, police, ward councillors and education department but their complaints had fallen on deaf ears. Mr Charles Nkosi, spokesman for Mbombela Traffic Department, said they, too, were concerned. “We have arranged a meeting with Mr Jan de Vos and other concerned parties to discuss a possible solution because it cannot carry on like this.” The meeting has been scheduled for February 3.
