Keep off the grass!
About a year ago, I was privileged to have the opportunity to take Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogata, Colombia, on a walking tour of the Cape Town Central City. Penalosa is well known because of his pioneering efforts as Mayor between 1998 and 2001 in transforming his city from a car-dominated to a more people-friendly environment.
The website of the Project for Public Spaces in New York has this to say about him: “While mayor, Peñalosa was responsible for numerous radical improvements to the city and its citizens. He promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometres of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks… Peñalosa also led efforts to improve Bogotá’s marginal neighbourhoods through citizen involvement; planted more than 100,000 trees; created a new, highly successful bus-based transit system; and turned a deteriorated downtown avenue into a dynamic pedestrian public space. He helped transform the city’s attitude from one of negative hopelessness to one of pride and hope, developing a model for urban improvement based on the equal rights of all people to transportation, education, and public spaces.”
So, Peñalosa is a pretty influential person when it comes to promoting people’s rights to the city, especially public spaces, and we were keen to learn from him. We showed him around town, and looked at our own public space improvements, such as the Grand Parade and Greenmarket Square. We observed where invasions of public space were continuing to take place, by cars, traders and retailers (Peñalosa expressed his horror at the amount of open parking lots in the city, but admired the potential of the St George’s Mall pedestrian spine). We discussed ways in which to improve the pedestrian environment and to promote cycling.
We also discussed the proposed new Integrated Rapid Transit System and the planned improvements to the Cape Town Station. It was while walking through the station precinct that the embarrassing incident took place. As we walked onto the Station Forecourt, the only bit of green space in the CBD other than the Company’s Gardens, we were immediately ordered to get off the grass. We remonstrated with the security guard: ‘Surely this is public space, a place for people to come out of the buildings to eat their lunches?’ It didn’t help. We were unceremoniously turfed off and completed our walking tour in a somewhat subdued fashion. Clearly, we still had a long way to go in terms of changing attitudes…
Postscript: the Station Forecourt is currently being dug up and resurfaced to form new public square in the heart of the city. People will be welcome in the space, which will effectively form the start of the Fan Walk to the new Cape Town Stadium.
Enrique Penalosa in Cape Town 2008
