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Partners
- The City of Cape Town’s Urban Mobility Directorate’s call on residents to provide their input on the proposed construction of traffic calming measures in Claremont and other areas.
- The Young Urbanists and the Active Mobility Forum (AMF) support the department’s call for public ideas to revamp the roads.
- The proposed traffic calming measures in these areas aim to enhance pedestrian safety, especially around schools, where the highest concentration of vulnerable road users is typically encountered.
Following the City of Cape Town’s Urban Mobility Directorate’s call on residents to provide their input on the proposed construction of traffic calming measures in Claremont and other areas, the Young Urbanists and the Active Mobility Forum (AMF) support the department’s call for public ideas to revamp the roads.
“Our Urban Mobility Directorate has proposed various traffic calming measures in these areas to enhance pedestrian safety, particularly around schools where the highest concentration of vulnerable road users are typically encountered. Receiving comments and suggestions from these communities is a vital aspect of our planning process and I urge residents to take a look at the plans on the City’s website and not to hesitate to make contact with us should they have any questions or comments,” said the City’s Mayco member for urban mobility, Rob Quintas.
In reaction to this, the Managing Director of Young Urbanists Roland Postma shared statistics regarding road safety in Cape Town, where over 55 000 crashes occurred in 2021 alone, leading to more than 700 fatalities and over 7 000 injuries annually.
Young Urbanists NPC is a community aimed at individuals who have an interest in their city and want to be more engaged stakeholders in the future. Young Urbanists also believe in change and as such have co-founded the AMF and the Safe Passage Programme which is South Africa’s first public and private partnership programme to connect informal to formal areas. They have raised over a million rands to upgrade infrastructure to make it safer for NMT users.
Through social, educative and advocacy events, they connect people who have a passion for cities. AMF is the main group to bring all the diverse voices around active mobility under one banner to work with the government and other stakeholders to make all forms of active mobility (e.g. walking, cycling, skating, walking combined with public transport) more viable and safer alternatives to private transportation.
This is a partnership driven by Young Urbanists and the Bicycle Mayor, Sindile Mavundla.
Postma added to the statistics cited by saying: “A striking 60-70% of these fatalities are pedestrians, underscoring the urgent need for intervention to safer designed streets. If we continue to design roads to look like the gun of a barrel, people will be speeding like bullets,” noted Postma.
“With more than half of all victims under the age of 35, and the economic toll exceeding R5,4 billion last year, the time to act is now,” he said, pointing to the City’s request for innovative solutions across three key themes: the safety of pedestrians and non-motorised transport users, passenger safety and motorist safety.
As such, to empower community participation, the Young Urbanists and AMF have developed a specialised template to assist in formulating submissions for theme one – Road Safety for Pedestrians and other non-motorised transport users.
“We urge the public to use this new tool by the City’s stakeholders to tell the City what safer streets look like for our children, for cycling and public transportation. We need to move past just having speed bumps and only being able to ask for them near schools. We need a complete revamp of the Traffic Calming policy and this public process is the right tool to do so,” added Mavundla, Bicycle Mayor of Cape Town and chair of the AMF.
- Their template for residents to comment on Road Safety for Pedestrians and other non-motorised transport users can be accessed here.
- Submit ideas here.
Although the City intends to implement calming measures at all the sites listed, like those in Rondebosch, Mowbray, Plumstead, Bergvliet, Grassy Park, Wynberg, Heideveld, Surrey Estate, Crawford, Retreat, Hazendal, Gugulethu and Nyanga there are cost-related variables which are still unknown at this point. “Implementation of any suggested ideas will therefore be subject to funding availability,” Quintas further noted.
Interested and affected parties can view the designs and the list of affected streets/roads via www.capetown.gov.za/haveyoursay.
Comments, recommendations and input may be submitted as follows (quote reference 110232411) via email to UrbanMobility.CT@capetown.gov.za or online: www.capetown.gov.za/haveyoursay
The commenting period is open until Saturday 2 December.
Postma concluded: “Your ideas can lead to tangible changes in policy and infrastructure, ultimately creating a legacy of safety for future generations.”
