Cape Town: Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed Prasa’s reopening of the Kapteinsklip passenger rail line along the Mitchells Plain corridor. He hailed this as another step towards devolution of the rail system for the City to run.
Recently, the City of Cape Town adopted Rail Business Plan, and found that, for a viable devolution handover of rail to the City – Prasa and national government need to restore rail network operations to 2012 levels of 620,000 daily passenger trips, which existed prior to the steady collapse of rail over the last decade.
Mayor Geordin Hill Lewis stated that, “We welcome Prasa’s reopening of passenger rail services along the Mitchells Plain corridor. This long-awaited progress is a big boost for public transport services to communities along this line.”
“In time, we want to see residents use the same ticket to hop from this rail corridor to the new MyCiti route expansion that the City is developing along the metro’s south-east,” urged Lewis.
According to Mayor Lewis, Capetonians urgently need an expanded, affordable, and reliable rail service that is integrated with other forms of transport via one ticketing system. Prasa’s restoring of the rail service is one of the critical first steps towards devolution of the system to the City in line with the Rail Business Plan’s long-term vision to massively scale up passenger numbers, new train sets, new routes, upgrade stations, and develop surrounding precincts with affordable housing over the next two decades.
He added that the next crucial step is to finalise the national policy framework for devolution, and they are looking forward to Transport Minister Creecy’s release of the draft National Rail Bill and Masterplan. They finalised this devolution framework, in line with the National White Paper on Rail, it will unlock the potential for truly integrated, affordable, and accountable public transport, which is a shared goal among all spheres of government.
Under the Cape Town Long-Term Plan, which sets out the City’s overall strategic goals until 2050, 75% of passenger trips are to be made with public transport, with rail as the backbone of an integrated system under City control.
Considering this, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Urban Mobility – Councillor Rob Quintas said that the City’s Rail Business Plan explored nine devolution scenarios, identifying the three most viable options. All viable options involve the devolution of rail services, associated assets and infrastructure to the City of Cape Town with the participation of the private sector operating services on a contractual or comprehensive concession basis.
He confirmed that the Business Plan also rules out less viable devolution scenarios where infrastructure remains owned and are managed by Prasa, where the City operates the rail service rather than the private sector.
Cllr Quintas also cleared that crucially, the plan concludes that devolution is only possible with funding from the national fiscus, with no room within the rates base of the City to cross subsidise rail. The City also needs to have authority over fare-setting, access to long-term National grant-funding, and to generate local revenue through public-private partnerships and commercialisation. This is in line with the City’s constitutional mandate for integrated transport planning across different public transport modes.
Therefore, the City of Cape Town regards passenger rail takeover as essential to improving integrated public transport across the metro, which is one of several key means to achieving its broader Long Term Plan target of 110% GDP growth by 2050.