Time to share a car today

ANDREW Donaldson’s column, A Famous Grouse, headlined “Traffic woes? Don’t drive, says the city”, Weekend Argus, November 7) correctly identifies the essence of the City of Cape Town’s plans to begin to alleviate traffic congestion – behavioural changes.

This is the most critical of the three- pronged approach as it will change the way in which the city functions.

Apart from the R750 million investment for road infrastructure projects announced at the congestion summit last week, the mayor highlighted interventions the city will implement over the next five years, including flexitime and new working hours.

The city will also take the lead and look at car-sharing initiatives and we encourage the private sector to follow suit and find ways of encouraging workers to use these efficient methods.

Without operational and behavioural change projects running alongside infrastructure intervention, we will not have a sustainable approach.

The city is investing significantly in expanding the MyCiTi bus service. We are making great strides as the service is in great demand.

Mr Donaldson asked about the wifi on the buses. This plan is moving. The city has issued a tender for a service provider to install and operate a wifi internet access service on all MyCiTi buses. We anticipate that the tender process will be finalised in a few weeks.

Thereafter, we anticipate the successful service provider will operate the wifi access service on a pilot basis for six months, after which wifi will progressively become available on all MyCiTi routes and buses over the following six months.

Our goal is to create the conditions that will encourage people to use pub- lic transport. With the provision of wifi on the buses, passengers will be able to connect their devices to the internet and start their work while commuting.

Basic use of the service will be free and each passenger will have use of a limited amount 50MB of data per passenger.

Congestion comes at a great cost, with time and money being lost, but also in terms of pollution and its longterm effect on our environment.

We must work together on all fronts to alleviate congestion.

It is vital we adapt and change our actions if we want to live in a city that works in terms of efficient movement of goods and everyone and so we encourage people to take up Mr Donaldson’s offer and make a start with car-sharing initiatives.