For Cape Town’s IRT system to work, it must be easy for regular passengers to get from their home to an IRT bus station. Once commuters arrive at their destination station it must also be easy to get to wherever they have business.

With this in mind, a key element of Cape Town’s new Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) public transport system is the transformation of areas along its routes and around its stations into pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods.

In many places, Capetonians using the IRT will need to make some of their journey on foot. This is a familiar practice for those living in most major international cities, but has not yet become a part of South Africa’s urban culture. But with rising fuel prices, growing congestion on the roads, and more awareness of the impact that cars have on the environment, South African cities are ripe for change.

Walking down the road to a bus station and leaving the car at home, or not owning a car at all, will be a difficult shift for some. Part of the answer is to make walking safer and pleasanter.

To do this, engineers working on the IRT have designed customised upgrades of all streets that intersect with the IRT route based on a comprehensive review of what the pedestrian demands will be, and what the existing challenges are.

Depending on the environment, examples of improvements include installing bollards to prevent parked cars from blocking walkways, creating highly visible markings and signage to warn motorists and direct pedestrians, making sure that all areas are well lit for safety and building new, wider or resurfaced pavements, to make walking a good experience.

Around schools, or where high volumes of pedestrians are expected and space allows, new three metre-wide walkways will be built separate from the road along the trunk or main routes. These areas will also have a lot of visible signage, with large black and white zebra crossings at intersections.

Most upgraded pedestrian areas will extend approximately 500m on each side of the IRT’s main trunk routes, but where necessary, new infrastructure will be built much further than this to link the system to other areas. For example, in the Paarden Island area of the first main trunk route up the West Coast, three solid pathways will be built across the nearby wetland to allow users of the system to access it from surrounding neighbourhoods.

These pathways will have good lighting along their entire length for safety, and will reduce damage to the sensitive local environment by encouraging people to walk in one place. In the same area a pedestrian bridge will also be built to link the IRT to the nearest railway station.

The IRT system is designed to provide universal access to people with disabilities, so all pedestrian areas need to be easy for a person in a wheelchair to use. Extensive research has been done into these improvements, which benefit all pedestrians, and include dropped curbs at all intersections, and wide, even pavement surfaces.

For those who really don’t want to walk, using a bicycle is another option. All IRT pedestrian routes will include cycleways, either as part of the walkway or in painted lanes on the road. These will link up to existing cycle routes where possible and as this network spreads across Cape Town, commuting by bicycle will become a simpler, safer and healthier alternative.