The Tshwane metro has missed two deadlines for the completion of the Waltloo bus lane.
Last year spokesperson Lindela Mashigo told Rekord that construction would be completed by 29 November, then later gave a new date of 29 March this year.
Both have since come and gone and the metro, it appears, has chosen not to give a revised deadline, with MMC for roads and transport Sheila Lynn Senkubuge only saying construction was over 90 percent complete.
ALSO READ: Objections stall east BRT line construction
Initially, the metro said Petroleum Road and Love Street had been upgraded to use as a detour during the construction of the bus lanes.
She said the upgrade included touch-ups to Zasm Street, construction of the Masakhane, Transnet and Prasa bridges and walkways and cycle lanes along Waltloo to Tsamaya and Zasm streets.
She said other projects in the pipeline for the east were:
Traffic calming and pedestrian safety campaign to the tune of R15 million;
Hartebeest Spruit canal upgrade worth R2.5 million;
Montana Spruit channel improvement valued at R10.9 million; and
Traffic flow improvement measures worth R 3 million.
Ongoing BRT projects
Senkubuge said ongoing projects included the upgrade of Atterbury road between Lois and January Masilela and the Waltloo and construction of the Denneboom stations.
Senkubuge said the metro was working closely with the Gauteng department of roads and transport and other agencies to resolve challenges in licensing centres in the municipality.
She said her department had budgetary constraints that prevented it from dealing with the roads and stormwater backlog in the city
Should commuters expect a price hike on bus services this year?
Senkubuge said with regards to the Tshwane Bus Services “the bus prices [fares] will increase in line with the annual increases of municipal services although in 2017 TBS prices were reduced when other bus services increased their prices”.
When it comes to the bus rapid transit system, “the bus prices [fares] will increase in line with the annual increases of municipal services”.
ALSO READ: Waltloo bus lane still incomplete
She added that there would be no major changes to the ticketing system.
“The vision is to have one ticketing system throughout all public transport systems, currently the A Re Yeng connector is used in both BRT and TBS.”
“It can also be used in other municipal BRT systems such as Mi City (Cape Town) and Re A Vaya (Joburg).”
She added that the metro was working with the Gautrain Management Agency (GMA) to enable this connector card to be used on the Gautrain as well.
ALSO READ: A battle over bus lanes
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