Inaccessible accessibility

A few years ago the City of Cape Town spent some money upgrading the area next to the Plumstead railway station. A new parking area, prettier paving, a raised pedestrian crossing.

Also, ramps up and down the sidewalk to get onto the crossing. In theory this is good, providing better access for the wheelchair-bound to the station. But then I noticed something:

Someone had planned the ramps, apparently without regard to where the lampposts were. And now we have a wheelchair ramp with a lamppost right in the middle of it. That money spent on the ramp seems wasted now. I wonder if anyone thought anything of it during the construction?

Political certainty or ethics?

SANRAL has failed to raise bonds at a bond auction. The Financial Mail attributes this to "uncertainty". Fair enough, to an investor, certainty is always better than uncertainty, all other things considered equal.

Isn't there a shortcut though? Act ethically - stop mining a captive audience for cash just because they have little option but to pay - and they won't cause political problems for your plans.

I have nothing against toll roads in principle, but I have a real problem with captive states handing over public assets to (quasi-)private interests along with de facto monopoly power. And despite my sometimes-libertarian leanings, I do not want to leave it to the market to decide how many roads should cross a countryside, for the same reason I don't think I would like the libertarian outcome of private nature conservation (I suspect there just wouldn't be enough of it).

But the way SANRAL seems to be exploiting its privileged position leaves a bad taste in the mouth. They are enclosing the commons that we have already paid for (and we continue to do so with the fuel levy we pay regardless of which road sections we use) simply by improving or even merely maintaining a stretch of road - perhaps adding a lane and probably also counting tolling facilities as "improvement". Then they have the gall to tell us that their tolls do not constitute double taxation [PDF]. It all looks, smells, and sounds like pigs feeding at the trough.

So to those of you who are fortunate to be investors, especially any of you who get to have a say in your investments' operations: try agitating for ethical behaviour, for treating customers with a little respect, leaving some money (read: value) on the table to make transactions worthwhile for those customers. (SA steel producers: yes, I'm also looking at you and your import parity pricing [PDF].) Perhaps these variables are ones you have a little more control over, unlike the notion of "political stability".

Transport Month Week Three Survey - my responses

Recording my responses to Transport Month Week Three survey for the wall of text. Don't have the muse to be more creative.

Which public transport service(s) do you use and why?
Rail transport
How often do you use public transport and why? (daily/occasionally/events only/never)
Occasionally, sporadically daily
What would persuade you to use public transport?
I'd use it more if it were more unlikely that I'd have to wait 40 minutes for the next train, whether due to breakdowns, dogs eating Metrorail's homework, or just the rather rarefied off-peak schedules.
Do you think an after-hours public transport service should be available and, if so, what would persuade you to use such a service?
Yes! It would help if such a service a) existed, and b) was safe to use. Even something like London's notorious/famous "night bus" could help - anything that can predictably and reliably take me home, even if not super promptly.
What is your experience of the Transport Information Centre and what should be done to improve the overall public transport service in Cape Town?

Never used the TIC - sorry. Figure out how to make it more "cool" to use public transport, not such a Hobson's choice. Break the vicious cycle of mediocrity of service and low appetite for its use.

Longer answer: perhaps there needs to be a bit of stick and carrot. Cape Town's roads seem to have become noticeably more congested over the 15 years I've been driving, especially the intersections of major routes surrounding the principal economic nodes. It would be a tragedy if the solution to this consisted (only) of road widening. Instead, we need to get people out of cars and into buses, trains, and (grudgingly) minibus taxis. I think the City knows this. Carrot: more convenient, safe, clean, all-singing-and-dancing public transport. Stick: higher vehicle registration fees, since you can't attack directly via the fuel price. More stick: continue coming down on drunken drivers like a ton of bricks.

My experience of Germany's train system is that even the upper classes have no qualms about using the trains. Why is this not the case in Cape Town? I can suppose the cause is a combination of stations in dodgy or dodgy-looking areas (or rather, stations *attract* dodginess), ugly, dirty, antedeluvian-looking trainsets (the 10M3's are a little better - but not by much), a culture of mediocrity that suffuses Metrorail that results in poor service that only those who have no other choice will tolerate. I don't think many non-train-users know that at least in peak times and if one's travel needs are along the rail corridors, you get where you want to be, quicker.

Perhaps shorter trainsets can help to address the deserted-trains-give-me-the-creeps problem after hours? Not much of an energy saving but maybe if people felt safer, they'd have a greater appetite for rail transport.

I enthusiastically support the City's efforts to wrest control over commuter rail transport from Metrofail, if only for the potential for a culture reboot that it offers.

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UPDATE: "Server Error in '/FeedbackForm' Application. // Runtime Error". Sigh.