Can Johannesburg reinvent itself as Africa’s first cycle-friendly megacity

[kosmonooit]

I have noticed a growing number of commuters between Alex and Tembisa using the roads and I think they are heroes. Often give them a thumbs up and big smile whilst stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Sandton. Would love to see more cyclists on the roads commuting to work.

 

 

And one would think those in charge of planning / implementing bike lanes would look to see where the commuters routes are, and improve that as a priority, but no, they sit in ivory towers, living in a world of make-believe. Making things work in an efficient and effective way is something they are not familiar with. It's a national pandemic in public service.

[kosmonooit]

I would LOVE to see it but the current bike lanes (UJ-area) are not working and are unused...

 

Like Rea Vaya, this may be another great idea by the CoJ that's sunk by poor planning, bad routing and terrible implementation.

 

 

Absolutely, take all the construction activity on Louis Botha.Crazy road that, chock-a-block around the clock with full taxis, moving millions of people, yet they are not going to halve the width of the road and dedicate a bus lane. Insane. Although most motorist loathe taxis,its an incredibly efficient, successful and cheap system.

 

Its more about contracts for pals and those in favour that anything useful. They have dug up all the pavements on each side of the road all the way from Hillbrow to Alex, and relaid with them almost exactly where the old ones were. Worse with that cement brick that does not stand the test of time. Some have just been dug up and left that way, for about a year now on a stretch I used to use. New street light poles as well, although nothing wrong with the old ones,  and not even erected perpendicular nogal. 

 

And try ride ur bike on these roads that have these bus lanes, like Commissioner and Rissik (or whatever those are named now) - its totally hectic and impassible.

 

Often here the roads narrow with no verge, and not even place / vias for pedestrians. (ie William Nicol from Sandton to Bryanston)

[Loose cog]

Two great missed opportunities I noticed recently with the new roads being built in Sandton.

 

R55 Woodmead Drive north from Witkoppen towards Kyalami and the R522 Cedar Road north from Broad-acres Mall. 

 

Has anyone noticed how narrow the emergency lane is? You would think they would have constructed a larger shoulder for bicycles, runners and minibus taxis. Idiots! No doubt in the pockets of the owners of Century and Steyn City. 

[JJDT]

Most drivers are to impatient for this to work. Taxis stopping where they want, drive where they want. Went twice to Midrand in recent times and taking Lever road from Olifantsfontein road. The last 750m to the intersection with New Road seeing taxis driving on half of the pavement just to avoid sitting in traffic.

A lot needs to happen in order to get this to work but I do not think it will happen anytime soon in the near future.

[nonky]

Absolutely, take all the construction activity on Louis Botha.Crazy road that, chock-a-block around the clock with full taxis, moving millions of people, yet they are not going to halve the width of the road and dedicate a bus lane. Insane. Although most motorist loathe taxis,its an incredibly efficient, successful and cheap system.

 

Its more about contracts for pals and those in favour that anything useful. They have dug up all the pavements on each side of the road all the way from Hillbrow to Alex, and relaid with them almost exactly where the old ones were. Worse with that cement brick that does not stand the test of time. Some have just been dug up and left that way, for about a year now on a stretch I used to use. New street light poles as well, although nothing wrong with the old ones,  and not even erected perpendicular nogal. 

 

And try ride ur bike on these roads that have these bus lanes, like Commissioner and Rissik (or whatever those are named now) - its totally hectic and impassible.

 

Often here the roads narrow with no verge, and not even place / vias for pedestrians. (ie William Nicol from Sandton to Bryanston)

 

Louis Botha has been a nightmare for TWO YEARS while they try to figure out what to do - the construction was so badly planned, they ripped up a lot of it.

 

There have been pointsmen at the Victory Theatre intersection for MONTHS now, despite the fact that the robots worked perfectly PRIOR to the rea vaya "improvements".

 

Worst of all, they cut down all the mature trees from Houghton Drive to Hillbrow.

[Bateleur1]

Short answer no.

 

There are four vital components required:

 

Attitude:  Do we want to be seen riding a bike to work?

Education:  Road rules.

Infrastructure:  Getting the bike lanes and signs sorted.

Law enforcement:  In needs to be applied.

 

The latter is the easy part but will cost money.   The attitude of being will to ride to bike is the first problem.  Secondly the attitude to abiding to the rules around bike lanes is the second problem.  Cars will park on the bike lanes.  Pedestrians will use it, etc etc.  Then the education.  In Germany kids are tough in the third class on traffic rules and specific to cycling and cycling lanes.  In the fourth grade they need to do a "drivers license" on their bicycles.  SA is very very far behind on that.

 

The Infrastructure in my opinion is actually the easy part.

 

The law enforcement is what will help all to stick together to make this work but currently traffic cops are useless and don't even know the law they need to uphold.

[Catatonic_Joe]

We've recently moved office to Braamfontein, and I'm lucky enough to have cycle lanes from less than a kilometre from my house that lead right to the front door of my office. I've been commuting almost every Monday to Thurday, and I must say, it has been such a pleasure, now and again I have to hop out of the lane for a random car/taxi/bus parked in the lane, but it has mostly been a great experience, even when the traffic is really heavy.

 

The part I find sad however, is that even though we have this little bit of cycling infrastructure, I've seen at most, 1 or 2 other people using the lanes. The city has done something to accommodate cyclists... and no one's using it. I have heard whispers of more efforts being made to try and get more students to use bike to get to campus, hopefully initiative such as these will help to get more people using the lanes.

[raptor-22]

Andrew Wheeldon, director of Bicycle Cities and the Freedom Ride, and former managing director of BEN, the Bicycling Empowerment Network which has distributed more than 15,000 bikes to school children, health workers and others, says both Cape Town and Johannesburg need multi-modal solutions. If someone is making a 40-mile round-trip to work from the Cape Flats or outer Soweto then they need secure bike parking near transport hubs, allowing them to combine cycling with the BRT, and allowing the person running the hub to make a few rand watching over the bikes and making repairs.

“Johannesburg started later than Cape Town, but they have some very inspirational people who are pushing all the time,” he says. “Johannesburg has the political will. That’s why I think they are going to shoot ahead.”

 

 

 

All the issues mentioned aboved are just excuses not to implement the plan. the bolded bits says it all.

If there's political will, then it will happen and issues will be addressed.

[Bateleur1]

I think what would help is if there would be insentive programmes presented by Companies for employees to commute by bike.

 

SARS can also help with regard to Tax Incentives to support commuting to work (making bike services and bikes tax deductable)

[RocknRolla]

I think what would help is if there would be insentive programmes presented by Companies for employees to commute by bike.

 

SARS can also help with regard to Tax Incentives to support commuting to work (making bike services and bikes tax deductable)

 

 

great idea, like in the UK, where you can purchase a bike for your commute, pay it off interest free, and with no tax.

 

but here in zumaville...it's more a case of tax intensive....wherever a quick buck can be extracted from the general public, it will be done...

[carbon29er]

In my view the biggest single issue to cycle friendly megacities is the lack of a cycling culture.

 

Kids have not ridden bikes from an early age and bikes are not an aspirational means of transport. Rich people owned cars and the odd labourer rode a bike. So social status is not improved by riding a bike.

 

Until this changes any bike lanes will be used by a minority in the middles classes and a few unskilled workers, But not many. As there are not many who can actually ride a bike. Certainly not millions.

 

Tie this into the fact that South Africa has the fifth least physically active population world wide and you can see why Malema, ever the populist, sees bikes lanes as being another affront to the poor.

 

Then add is safety and bikes sharing the road with motor vehicles.

[kosmonooit]

Louis Botha has been a nightmare for TWO YEARS while they try to figure out what to do - the construction was so badly planned, they ripped up a lot of it.

 

There have been pointsmen at the Victory Theatre intersection for MONTHS now, despite the fact that the robots worked perfectly PRIOR to the rea vaya "improvements".

 

Worst of all, they cut down all the mature trees from Houghton Drive to Hillbrow.

 

And that line of beautiful indigenous trees that flower in winter on the LHS going north of Balfour Park.

 

AND lets not forget the fiasco of the fencing  that was put up in the middle of the road, and then taken down.

 

If fact I really struggle to think or see anything positive in this or any other grand public works project in Jhb. So really don't expect any development in the aspect of road or transport to be forward thinking or actually work or make anyone's lives better. They threw a couple of hundred million away already on the green paint that they call cycle lanes, that I am yet to see any cyclist using.

[DoubleJ]

For sure....this guy has been commuting to work in Sandton for many years now.

[kosmonooit]

In my view the biggest single issue to cycle friendly megacities is the lack of a cycling culture.

 

Kids have not ridden bikes from an early age and bikes are not an aspirational means of transport. Rich people owned cars and the odd labourer rode a bike. So social status is not improved by riding a bike.

 

Until this changes any bike lanes will be used by a minority in the middles classes and a few unskilled workers, But not many. As there are not many who can actually ride a bike. Certainly not millions.

 

Tie this into the fact that South Africa has the fifth least physically active population world wide and you can see why Malema, ever the populist, sees bikes lanes as being another affront to the poor.

 

Then add is safety and bikes sharing the road with motor vehicles.

 

What came first, the chicken or the egg? 

 

I spent a year in London at the turn of the century, cycled in from West London / Ealing to South Kensington daily, it was a dice with death then and many of my fellow students said they would love to be able to cycle in as well instead of the Tube, but it was to dangerous. Fast forward 15 years, London is being transformed into a cycling friendly city with dedicated cycle lanes abounding, and the numbers of cyclists commuting has exploded. That is a result of years of work with enlightened and forward thinking people in charge making it happen. 

 

Sadly here its just hot air, and wasted money. As long as people be being given jobs without merit this is going to continue.

 

And most people will not cycle on the roads here because of the prevailing driver culture, not unless there are segregated bike lanes. What can be done about that? As I have said, even driving here in a steel cage is loathsome endeavour.  There is also the security worry.

[carbon29er]

Difference though Kos (Not his real name) is they WANTED to cycle but were scared of the danger. What I said is there is no demand here, or very little, as kids were not taught to ride and never had bicycles. Those kids are now adults.

 

Even the quote from Andrew Wheelden, gave away 15,000 bicycles. Not limited by supplier but by demand.

 

Qhebeka are making progress, but at 5,000 bikes a year. Is this really progress in a country with 55 million people, 25 million of whom are18 or younger?

[Bateleur1]

Have to agree with you Carbon29er.  There are various factors why kids do not go to school with their bikes.  When we were still living in SA my kids really wanted to go to school with their bikes but it was simply to unsafe.  The road conditions between home and the school (4.5 kn away) was simply not safe for small kids and then the physicall security was a problem as well.  There has been one or two cases lately of abductions and attempted abductions in the area.

 

So kids will grow up not cycling which will not help creating a cycling culture.