Councillor calls for dedicated taxi stops
JOBURG – There are very few dedicated stopping places on the City’s public transport routes.
Ward 98 councillor, Laurette van Zijl, has called on the City of Johannesburg to regulate the stopping places of public transport providers with specific interests on taxis.
She is adamant that if the City implements demarcated stopping places where all transport providers, specifically taxis, can drop off and pick up passengers, it would ensure the ease of traffic flow and safety for other motorists.
Van Zijl explained that there were very few dedicated stopping places on the City’s public transport routes.
“The City will have to embark upon an aggressive education campaign of both drivers and passengers if the bylaw is to be implemented successfully,” the Ward 98 councillor reckoned.
She explained that the taxis could not be expected to abide by a bylaw if the City had not made provision for them to do so.
“Johannesburg’s bylaw on metered taxi, minibus, midibus and bus stipulates in section 8 that ‘no person may park a metered taxi, minibus, or bus on any public road for the purpose of providing a transport service, except in an exclusive parking bay marked by a road traffic sign as prescribed in terms of the National Road Traffic Act 1996 (Act no 93 of 1996) for that vehicle’,” Van Zijl explained.
She reckoned that where there are taxi lay byes where taxi drivers should pull off the roads, as in the Randburg area, these were not being used.
“As a rule, they will stop in the intersection to drop off people and then again 10 metres further in such a lay bye,” she concluded.
Details: Laurette van Zijl, 082 330 0593.
