Rea Vaya bus lane left open for gross abuse

The Citizen’s offices are just a stone’s throw away from a big intersection at the corner of Commando Road and Albertina Sisulu Road. Back in the day it was a breeze heading home by turning right onto Albertina Sisulu past the Newclare Cemetery on your way to the N1 during rush hour. But ever since they built the Rea Vaya bus lane, it has been organised chaos on the best of days. In theory the bus lane is a wonderful concept, pretty much like a profitable national airline or an effective post office, but like many other things in our beautiful country, it’s not functioning correctly.

Here’s the thing, the Rea Vaya buses do use the bus lane to get from station to station to drop and pick up passengers, but is almost like an unfenced mealie land left wide open for abuse and at the end of the day Rea Vaya bus drivers are left as frustrated as the law-abiding motorists who pay attention to the rules.

The bus lane is suppose to be for the exclusive use of Rea Vaya buses, but hordes of Putco buses, minibus taxis and cars who are not prepared to wait their turn in traffic decide to use the lane to skip the line. As if that’s not bad enough, the paw-paw usually hits the fan when they make their way back onto the real road at the stations. Then it’s a case of holding up the Rea Vaya buses who are within their right with a green light to cross the intersection in their own lane of all places, as well as motorists waiting to turn right at the signal in the correct lane but are blocked by others who used the exclusive lane to get to the front of the line and then drive straight across forcing their way back into the single

lane heading south.

The worst part is that Metro cops can be seen on some days manning the stations, but do absolutely nothing to any offender. And judging by the reckless behaviour of these offenders right in front of the officers, it doesn’t seem that anybody has ever been fined for an infringement. It’s a lost case.