Siyajikeleza, Laat Wiel, Going Places

At the invitation of the City of Cape Town, I went for a ride on one of the new Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) buses today to view three of the stations that have recently been completed: Civic Centre, CT Airport and Cape Town Stadium. It was exciting experience, as it is now possible to start to imagine what it would be like to live in a city where all communities are connected by a public transport system of equal quality.

One of the highlights of the trip was the public art that is in the process of being installed at the stations. I understand that investing in public art as part of IRT was not always an easy sell within the City’s project team, due to tight budgets and competing priorities. For me, however, it is what is going to distinguish the future IRT system from any other transport system – the fact that parts of the history and memory of Cape Town are being so beautifully inscribed in the new public places.

Celebrating the World Cup on one of the mosaic murals that decorate the passage from the IRT station to the pedestrian underpass in Green Point

The good news is that the airport shuttle service will launch on Saturday 29 May 2010 and the transport arrangements for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which will utilise part of the IRT system, will be ready.

Information about the new CT Airport service

The better news is that the IRT system, which has been branded MYCiTi, carries within it the real possibility of developing Cape Town differently over the next decade. For example, as soon as the ‘thin red lines’ of the IRT pass through the empty but well-located Culemborg area, it will raise the question as to why this part of the city is not being used for mixed use development, including affordable housing.

More broadly, it will help focus the debate on the need for a more compact city, with appropriate densification along all public transport routes. As Councillor Thompson, Mayoral Committee member for Transport says: “As the IRT rolls out across Cape Town in the coming years, it aims to be much more than a transport system. It must give citizens a sense of control, ownership, greater choice, mobility and access to opportunities.”

Inside the new station in Hertzog Boulevard, between the Civic Centre and Artscape

The artist is present: Sue Williamson's sand-blasted glass mural under construction at the CT Airport station

Inside the main station in Green Point

Showing the alignment of the bus with the station doors and raised platform

Green Point Common - where football was first played in South Africa in 1868

Celebrating over a century of the Cape Minstrels

The familiar Mouille Point lighthouse

The story of horseracing

The Metropolitan Golf Club was established in 1904

The faces of Cape Town

The faces of Cape Town

For more details on the IRT project, you can upload the latest report to Council here