Show some love for Rea Vaya new routes; warts and all
AFTER speaking in tongues for more than a year, the City of Johannesburg has finally launched the new Rea Vaya route from Soweto to the city centre, via Auckland Park and Parktown. At the launch on 8 September, Mayor Parks Tau's administration announced that buses would eventually use the new route next month.
The provincial government also disclosed that Ekurhuleni and Pretoria have adopted the transit system. However, the most interesting announcement was the imminent construction of the next phase, connecting the city centre with Sandton and Alexandra.
This is scheduled to begin in November. The Auckland Park route has been a subject of debate for months, risking becoming a white elephant, as agreements and contracts were yet to be signed. But the thing is, such contracts should have been signed while construction was underway.
Hopefully the government – with often questionable decision-making – has learnt valuable lessons, which will speed things up in the aforementioned areas.
The Sandton route has been plagued with controversies before, after sections of Oxford Road were found to be too narrow to accommodate the bus route.
Now, public meetings have been organised to discuss this route, but there is still no information on how this issue will be addressed. That’s poor communication right there. Sandton and Alexandra need Rea Vaya, but the implementation should neither be riddled with issues, nor compromise the welfare of affected communities.
