The man on the bus

A man from New York came and said the BRT is world class.

There you have it. From an expert’s mouth. Walter Hook is a transport consultant from what is called the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. A mouthful, but an expert who can compare Rea Vaya with other similar systems around the globe.

He also said the busses were very clean. That’s a nice compliment. Obviously the busses are still very new, but let’s hope they stay spotless and in good shape.

So Walter came to Jozi, took a BRT ride and smiled. And if a transport expert from the Big Apple smiles then that’s a welcoming smile. Thumbs up. Let’s keep it going and let’s roll it out further and further across the cities and into the townships and communities.

BRT & IRT

Enrique Penalosa has given Joburg’s Rea Vaya bus system the thumbs up. You have the right to ask yourself “Who is this Enrique dude?”.

Well Enrique Penalosa is the former mayor of Bogota, the capital of South America’s Colombia. And Joburg’s Bus Rapid Transit system was modelled on Bogota’s example. So we got the stamp of approval from our ‘teacher’. That’s a nice welcome. Penalosa was in town recently and mingled with BRT commuters.

I also discovered that the City of Johannesburg had (it ended last month) a Rea Vaya SMS competition running. Every week Jozi gave away R500 to a citizen who SMS’ed suggestions to improve the BRT system.

More on www.reavaya.org.za

And Cape Town’s spokeslady Kylie Hatton said some days ago that the Mother City is planning to roll out its so called Integrated Rapid Transit system (IRT) in the coming months.

Urban transport is changing fast across SA.



And.... eish!!!! Bafana Bafana lost again yesterday. 1-0 In and against tiny Iceland. We gotta support our national football team but it's a tough one. Our boys seem to be in a dark tunnel. 8 Defeats in our last 9 games. We could only beat Madagascar - not really a key player in international football. We really cannot enter history next year by being the first host nation to be kicked out of a world cup in the first round. That wouold be just not nice at all! I spotted in a newspaper this morning that SAFA has, unofficially for sure, given coach Santana a little bit more lifeline till after the next 2 games next month. That's against Japan and Jamaica. One thing's for sure. Time is ticking away fast.