Cape Town adopts flexible working hours to solve its worsening traffic problem
The City of Cape Town is in the process of implementing flexible working hours and remote working arrangements for employees, which it hopes to extend to private employees.
“We have engaged with the Western Cape Provincial Government to do the same,” said Brett Herron, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport and Urban Development.
“We have also worked with a small group of private employers on a pilot project, and plan to engage more widely with other big employers once we, as the City, have fully implemented the strategy within our organisation so that we can lead by example.”
The aim is to reduce traffic in the city, which is reported by TomTom’s Traffic Index to be the worst in the country.
“We need a multi-pronged approach in addressing traffic congestion as no roads-based intervention will succeed unless we address the ailing commuter rail service, and if commuters do not change their commuter patterns,” Herron said.
“First of all, we need the urban rail service to operate optimally and sufficiently, as the majority of commuters in Cape Town relies on Metorail’s Central line to get to and from work. Commuter rail remains the backbone of public transport in Cape Town – more than half of all commuter journeys (54%) are made by train.”
Herron pointed out that currently, thousands of rail commuters are making use of roads-based transport – be it public transport or private vehicles – due to the constant delays and suspension of the rail services over the past months.
By way of explanation, he said that passenger rail numbers in Cape Town have fallen by 30% from 2015/16 to 2016/17 alone. According to the latest data received from Metrorail, there were on average 2.7 million fewer rail journeys in Cape Town per month in 2016/17 when compared with 2015/16.
“Secondly, we need more people to use public transport where these services are available – for example, those living and working in the CBD have access to the MyCiTi bus service which has a number of routes within as well as to and from the CBD and beyond. Those of us who can walk or cycle to work must do so where practical.
“Thirdly, the City’s Transport and Urban Development Authority is spending R750 million on road infrastructure projects over a period of five years to address congestion in Kommetjie, Kuils River and Blaauwberg,” Herron said.
However, building new roads alone will not solve this challenge in the long term. Experience the world over has proven that new road capacity is usually taken up within a matter of months and that construction cannot stay ahead of the growing demand due to rapid urbanisation.
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