Gauteng Roads and Transport MEC Ismail Vadi and his former Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg Mpho Parks Tau, have ganged-up against new Mayor, Herman Mashaba.
This follows a decision by Mashaba to halt the ongoing construction of cycle lanes in Sandton and other areas and divert that money into meaningful projects in poor areas such as Alexandra. Vadi described Mashaba’s move as short-sighted and against current trends worldwide, which seek to divert attention from motor vehicles to non-motorised modes of transport as becoming the ‘in’ means of mobility.
Vadi goes on to describe the turnaround of policy by Mashaba as a narrow view on the issue.
Vadi’s so-called household survey, which I was never part of, despite being a homeowner in this rotten city, had shown that more than 10 per cent of people walk to work and these are the people he wanted the cycle lanes created for.
So, my question is, if South Africa has a population of 59 million, of what consequence is 10 per cent of that? Or to be precise, if Johannesburg has a population of five million, what consequence does 10 per cent of that have? It’s a meagre
500 000 and what is 500 000 compared to five million people to warrant you, Vadi, to divert our valuable resources to cater for a minute number at the expense of five million?
Even 10 per cent of 59 million is a far cry to warrant you to waste our resources like that.
Rather try to address the real issues that concern the people of Alexandra. If you go to Alex and ask those people what they need before your stupid cycle lanes, they will give you a mouthful.
If you’re in touch with our people, as most of you politicians of yesteryear are not, don’t make sweeping statements about their needs. Ask an ordinary South African whether he would like to cycle to work and he will tell you, in your face, to go to hell.
An ordinary South African has big dreams. He dreams of driving the same ‘black Mercedes Benz’ you drive every day yourself, and then you ask him or her to ride a bicycle? What an insult! Do you cycle to your office? Do you cycle over the weekend to do your shopping? Do you cycle yourself to check out your buddies over the weekend?
Who is supposed to cycle? A poor South African!
Instead of you using that money to improve the quality of life of the poor, you’re busy wasting it to create white elephants in our communities.
I challenge you to go to Hillbrow and Berea, Soweto and parts of your Sandton to see for yourself who uses your cycle lanes for what and you will be shocked. You can spend the rest of your ‘afternoon life’ (twilight years) waiting and hoping to see a cyclist using your cycle lanes and that will be no different from searching for a needle in a haystack.
In Hillbrow and Berea, your cycle lanes have become handy for street traders in tomatoes, onions, braai corn, hair braiding, fake DVDs, mending clothes, mending shoes, drug peddlers and sellers of street pap and braaivleis.
This is what the ANC government is good at. Sitting on their laurels and waiting for international trends to copy and paste. Now they want to copy and paste the Mexican ‘sugar tax’ nightmare. If they’re not allegedly siphoning off money through dubious tenders, they are waiting for international trends.
