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News Archive June 2011 Mayor supports Rea Vaya
News Archive June 2011 Mayor supports Rea Vaya
| Mayor supports Rea Vaya |
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| Friday, 10 June 2011 |
 THE new executive mayor plans to continue extending Rea Vaya, as part of his commitment to improving the quality of life of all residents.
Rea Vaya plays a significant part in making the city more accessible, says executive mayor Parks Tau
He was focused on “improving the quality of life for all our people across all regions and communities”, he said in his inaugural speech on 26 May. An important aspect of this was improving public transport and making all parts of the city much more accessible. Rea Vaya plays a significant part in that drive. And Tau said that over the next five years, Joburg would continue extending its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. The mayor told councillors and members of the public that he came face to face with the harsh realities of a failing public transport system when he visited the Stretford Train Station in Orange Farm earlier in May. “It had rained the night before. I battled through the mud to traverse the area between the main road and the entrance to the station. It was dark, cold, wet and the prospect of ending up face first in the mud was very real.” To add salt to the wound, the train did not arrive on time, which for him served as a reminder of the work that still needed to be done to build a public transport system that “caters to the needs of residents”. Rea Vaya, as the City’s BRT system is known, has been running successfully for the past year-and-a-half. The first phase, Phase 1A, made up of trunk, complementary and feeder routes, transports tens of thousands of people a day. It starts in Thokoza Park; its feeder buses travel to Dobsonville, passing through Orlando and Meadowlands. It also goes to Eldorado Park, driving through Kliptown. Other feeder routes in Soweto are to Naledi and Protea Glen. The trunk route, or main route, is from Thokoza Park and Dobsonville in Soweto to Ellis Park in Doornfontein. The buses run at regular intervals using dedicated bus lanes; this helps to combat traffic congestion and improve the quality of public transport. Rea Vaya is also the cleanest public transport on the continent. The buses run on low-sulphur diesel and have the most advanced pollution reduction equipment. They reduce nitrous oxides, the most dangerous health risk from vehicular emissions, by thousands of tons a year and particulate matter by hundreds of tons annually. Phase 1B, which will connect Soweto and the northern parts of Joburg, is taking shape, with a number of stations already constructed. This second trunk route will run from Noordgesig in Soweto, through Braamfontein, to Parktown, and then to the inner city. Once complete, the route will be 18 kilometres long with 10 new stations and would have cost about R1,2-billion. |
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