Photo by Warrenski. Licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0.
19 June 2014
After a six-month delay, the first MyCiTi buses serving Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain are scheduled to set out for the Cape Town Civic Centre at 5:30am on July 5. This will launch stage one of the N2 Express Line.
In the days leading up to the debut of the N2 Express service, details about the route are still being ironed out as negotiations continue between the City and the minibus taxi associations that serve the two areas.
The Khayelitsha route of MyCiTi will depart from Kuyasa and stop at seven locations in Khayelitsha (Vuyani, Charles Mokoena, Steve Biko, D Nyembe, Tutu, Dibana and Lindela) before taking the N2 to the CBD.
The Mitchell’s Plain buses will leave from the Town Centre and stop at four locations in Mitchell’s Plain (Sesame, Marguerite, Kerrem and Pontiac). Bus stops, identified by a pole with a MyCiTi banner, will remain temporary for the July 5 launch.
While some of the stop locations have been finalized with permanent construction underway, a few of the locations are still under debate by the Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain taxi associations. The City will test the commuter response to these temporary locations in the weeks following the rollout.
Both routes are scheduled to run for 18 hours every weekday. Councillor Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport, expects the official timetable to go public within the next ten days.
According to a representative from the Transport Information Centre, buses are tentatively scheduled to arrive every 12 to 48 minutes, depending on whether the journey is peak or off-peak. Initially each route will be served by ten buses, each with capacity for 89 passengers. According to official estimates almost 60% of the employed in Khayelitsha and 80% of the employed in Mitchell’s Plain rely on public transportation.
The first two routes of the N2 Express Service: Mitchell’s Plain East (top) and Khayelitsha East (bottom). Images courtesy of Councillor Brett Herron.
The N2 route has been long-awaited by commuters, but a concern that remains at the forefront of Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain citizens’ minds is the safety of travelling by MyCiTi. Though MyCiTi promises more advanced security measures than MetroRail or minibus taxis, locals worry that violence will break out if taxi drivers begin to fight for control over the passenger routes into Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain. Taxi wars that broke out near Muizenberg last month led to bloodshed.
Unlike the first MyCiTi routes introduced along the West Coast, the MyCiTi buses for Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain will supplement, rather than replace, the services of the minibus taxis and the train.
At a press event in Khayelitsha on 18 June, Herron, Mayor Patricia de Lille, and a crowd of taxi owners from CODETA and Route Six (the Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain taxi associations) crammed into a MyCiTi bus to take an inaugural drive to one of MyCiTi’s future stops. This was a signal of cooperation between the City of Cape Town and the taxi associations that will soon share passengers with MyCiTi.
When asked about the potential for violence, Andile Kanyi, secretary of CODETA, said, “It won’t happen.” According to Kanyi, CODETA has been in talks with the City since 2013, and he believes that the introduction of MyCiTi will “not take our jobs away”.
80 minibus taxi drivers from Khayelitsha have already undergone training to become MyCiTi bus drivers, he says, with even more waiting to begin the certification process.
In addition to the two routes that begin operating on 5 July, the City and the taxi associations are busy negotiating the stops for two other N2 routes to Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain. These additional routes will travel west around each township, in the opposite direction of the first two routes, which travel east. Kanyi estimates that these routes will begin to operate near the end of this year.
According to MyCiTi’s new fare system, which will go into effect four days before the N2 routes begin, a commuter from Khayelitsha or Mitchell’s Plain who normally takes a minibus taxi can save money with MyCiTi if they buy “Mover” points in advance of their journey.
The rate for a minibus taxi ride from Khayelitsha is R13 and Mitchell’s Plain R12, but a one-way MyCiti “Mover” ticket during peak hours will cost R11.60 to Khayelitsha, while a “Mover” ticket to Mitchell’s Plain costs R10.40.
But if the commuter does not travel with “Mover” points, the rates for MyCiTi are R16.50 for Khayelitsha commuters and R14.80 for those from Mitchell’s Plain.