PRASA and City rail agreement finally gets going
But Zackie Achmat criticises plan for lacking firm targets, commitments, and timelines
A Service Level Plan between the City of Cape Town and PRASA is the first step in the City taking a management role in commuter rail. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks.
- A Service Level Plan to give the City of Cape Town oversight of commuter rail in the metro has been years in the making.
- In December, mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis celebrated PRASA finally signing the plan.
- But recent correspondence between commuter activist organisation #UniteBehind and the City revealed omissions and errors in the plan.
An amended Service Level Plan between the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) and the City of Cape Town was finally signed off on 21 February. The original plan, which the Cape Town mayor announced had been signed by PRASA on 5 December, was found to have no start date.
The Service Level Plan is the first step toward the City taking a management role in commuter rail in Cape Town, in line with national policy and the Land Transport Act of 2009. But it has been years in the making. After delays on PRASA’s side, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in 2023 threatened to declare an intergovernmental dispute, and commuter activist organisation #UniteBehind instituted legal action to compel the parties to sign an agreement.
On 5 December last year, the same day the City adopted its Rail Feasibility Study in Council, Hill-Lewis announced the Service Level Plan had been signed by PRASA. Following the announcement, #UniteBehind requested a copy of the Plan from the City, but got no response.
This is detailed in a letter dated 7 February from #UniteBehind attorneys to the City, demanding the plan be supplied by 11 February. The City then provided an amended Service Level Plan, explaining that amendments had to be made due to errors or omissions in the original plan.
The main omission was a date for the Plan’s commencement.
The letter from the City attorneys to #UniteBehind states the City had sent a letter to PRASA on 17 January, pointing out that the start date for the Plan had been left blank. The City suggested amendments, including that the start date be “the date of signature of the last signing party”.
According to the City’s response to #UniteBehind, PRASA has since made the suggested amendments, with the amended Plan having been signed by PRASA Group CEO Hishaam Emeran on 24 January.
City Mayco member for Urban Mobility Rob Quintas said the City manager, Lungelo Mbandazayo, had signed the Plan on 21 February, and “planning” was now “underway” to implement it.
The agreement
The Plan, just 13 pages in length, has three objectives:
- an efficient and effective commuter rail service through the establishment of the City’s Integrated Public Transport Network;
- efficient and effective municipal services that support the commuter rail services and PRASA’s commercial services; and
- ensuring commuter rail services remain the primary means of public transport in the city.
The Plan focuses on co-operation on safety, land development along transport corridors, prevention and “evacuation” of illegal occupation of PRASA property, management and maintenance of infrastructure around stations and access roads, and intermodal transport facilities and integrated public transport planning.
One of the items in the agreement is the development of a system that will allow a single card to be used to pay for fares across public transport systems, such as the train, MyCiTi, and Golden Arrow buses.
The Plan states PRASA and the City will form a Service Level Plan Steering Committee through which they will meet, and which will monitor each party’s performance.
The City is obliged to provide a municipal service that “supports and enhances the provision of commuter rail services”, to invest in “mobility infrastructure” in a way which ensures rail forms “the backbone of public transport”, to facilitate and encourage “appropriate and suitable densification along rail corridors”, and to help PRASA with law enforcement, among other things.
PRASA, for its part, will report on the performance indicators and targets contained in its corporate plan, rebuild and maintain rail corridors, and repair and maintain the infrastructure needed to provide commuter rail services, among other things.
Both parties undertake to share data related to commuter rail in the city.
#UniteBehind founder Zackie Achmat criticised the Plan, saying it lacks firm targets, commitments, and timelines.
PRASA did not respond to GroundUp’s request for comment.
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