Cape Town calls for urgent public transport grant-funding certainty
14 May 2026
Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has written to Transport Minister Barbara Creecy and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to call for urgent funding certainty for MyCiTi bus services, as the national Public Transport Network Grant (PTNG) is being phased-out.
Cape Town’s MyCiTi is the most successful service of its kind, accounting for 42% of all passenger trips on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) nationally. However, uncertainty over national grant-funding jeopardises both existing MyCiTi bus services and the major new Cape Flats route expansion, set to benefit over 1,4 million residents across 30 neighbourhoods, from Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, to Wynberg and Claremont. MyCiTi ridership has grown by 68% since 2021 to 23 million passenger trips annually, and is set to reach 30 million once the Cape Flats extension begins operating.
But now the City is increasingly concerned that national proposals to end the funding for all BRT would leave the MyCiti service stranded, with no clear future funding certainty.
‘National funding reforms are understandable, because most BRT systems in metros and large towns have failed. In some cases, billions in grant-funding has been allocated without a single scheduled service ever commencing. But some, like MyCiti, have succeeded. The state should not throw out the baby with the bathwater, by cutting funding to successful BRT services along with all the unsuccessful ones.
‘We do support the ending of unsuccessful programmes where billions have been wasted on metro bus services that never got off the ground. But successful public transport services must be protected, especially for the sake of millions of Cape Town commuters in lower-income communities who will benefit from growing the MyCiTi bus service.
‘We don’t oppose the proposed creation of a Public Transport Fund to replace the PTNG and other funding streams, but we are calling for long-term certainty and performance-based funding for MyCiTi and other successful programmes. We are also seeking the reversal of national cuts already made to PTNG funding. I’ve asked the two Ministers responsible, of Transport and Finance, for an urgent engagement, as these funding uncertainties place the new Cape Flats route and the entire MyCiTi service at risk,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.
Councillor Rob Quintas, Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Mobility, said the national cuts penalise good performance in Cape Town, where R7,1 billion has already been committed to infrastructure for the new Cape Flats route expansion. The next step is to convert this new infrastructure into actual passenger service, including bus fleet procurement, however this is now at risk due to national cuts to the PTNG, which is set to be phased-out at the end of 2027/28.
‘Unlike the failing BRT systems in other cities, Cape Town has continued to invest, deliver, and grow ridership. It is only right that Cape Town’s MyCiTi service is not subjected to the same potential funding cut off as systems that have never left the starting blocks. This creates a perverse outcome: punishing performance and effectively subsidising failure.
‘We invite National Government to look at what Cape Town has built, measure it against what has been built elsewhere, and make a funding decision they can defend — not to politicians or officials, but to the commuters of this city, who depend on this system every single day.
‘Our standing invitation to Transport Minister Creecy remains for a MyCiTi "safari" visit — to see firsthand, on the ground, how these billions have been invested in major infrastructure like the Spine Road depots and the Sky Circle in Lansdowne to the benefit of millions of Cape Town commuters,’ said Councillor Quintas.
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
