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Councillor Rob Quintas’s Welcome Address at Global Alliance of Cities for Road Safety

I want to extend a warm welcome to the members of the Global Alliance of Cities for Road Safety in Cape Town. We are privileged to host you here, in our beautiful city, where we – as the City of Cape Town – are proud to say we are the pioneers in this country when it comes to clean governance and service delivery. In this room we have City officials who are dedicated professionals, focused and committed to do all they can to improve the lives of the nearly five million people who live and work in Cape Town.Road safety is a serious business.It concerns our children who need to get to and from school safely. It concerns those who have special needs, like people in wheelchairs and the elderly. It is about the thousands of commuters relying on public transport who travel to work to earn a living, and impacts those who cycle or walk to their destinations.Pedestrians' safety is paramount. Why? Because 42% of commuters in Cape Town walk, either to facilities where they can access public transport, or to their final destination. Also, low income households spend up to 43% of their monthly income on transport, and with these harsh economic times, many people have to walk as they cannot afford to pay for transport in particular at the end of the month.This is also why walking and cycling are included in the City's current and future planning. The City's Integrated Development Plan (IDP) sites a number of objectives that recognise and highlight the importance of non-motorised transport. Therefore, every project the City's Urban Mobility Directorate implements considers road safety and elements to improve this.I want to give you a few examples. We are currently busy extending the footprint of our MyCiTi bus service from Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain to Wynberg and Claremont. All of the new infrastructure – be it bus lanes, bus stops, or stations, and road improvements – makes provision for pedestrians with walkways separate from the road, and dedicated crossings. And where we have a big enough road reserve, we include bicycle lanes. <ul><li>In November last year, I opened the new pedestrian bridge in the vicinity of Watergate Estate in Lentegeur. We constructed this bridge to provide a safe railway crossing and safe access to the new MyCiTi station that will be located along AZ Berman Drive. Traffic calming is a useful tool to force drivers to slow down. Measures include speed humps, raised pedestrian crossings and raised intersections. The City's Traffic Calming Policy prioritises traffic calming at schools and along pedestrian routes to schools. Why? Because this is where we find the highest number of vulnerable road users, namely children. Since 1 July 2020 to date, we have:</li></ul><ul><li>implemented traffic calming projects at 311 schools across Cape Town</li><li>implemented traffic calming measures at 105 other locations where incidents and the number of vulnerable users warrant these interventions</li><li>implemented 257 speed humps</li><li>created 31 raised pedestrian crossings; and</li><li>created an additional 12 raised intersections To date, we have completed traffic calming projects at about 80% of schools in Cape Town, and we are steadily working towards the 100% target. We have installed a pedestrian signal at the intersection of Kloof Nek Road and Tafelberg Road to provide visitors to the very popular Table Mountain and Lion's Head sites with safe passage, and we are currently implementing similar pedestrian signals along Durban Road in Rondebosch, and at Hill Park Lane and Caledonian Road in Mowbray. We are also reviewing speeds along all coastal areas where there are tourist attractions, many pedestrians, and schools fronting primary roads.</li><li>As from 31 May 2022 we introduced a 40km/h speed zone along Main Road in Simon's Town from Victoria Way up to Molteno Road</li><li>The speed limit along Otto du Plessis Drive in Blaauwberg is 70km/h between Seaside Village and Melkbosstrand. Not only is this a scenic route, but there is also a shared bicycle and pedestrian lane. Thus, in the interest of road safety, the speed limit is capped at 70km/h where one would expect it to be 100km/h</li><li>In July last year, we installed variable speed signs along High Level Road on the Atlantic Seaboard. These signs help us to curb speeding. They detect the speed of a vehicle and then display this on a Variable Message Sign for the driver's attention. These signs have reduced speeding by up to 25% overseas and we have noted a similar trend along High Level Road. Innovation is a smart way of improving road safety.</li><li>In May 2022 we implemented new bus traffic signal systems for the MyCiTi bus service at four intersections along Blaauwberg Road in Table View. These signals only use white, as opposed to red, amber or green and help to minimise confusion among motorists at these intersections. Before, the bus signals were often mistaken as signals for vehicular traffic, which led to private vehicles reacting erroneously and causing collisions. We intend to implement these across the city, and also, it will be included in the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual for use by other cities and transport systems in South Africa. This is just another example of how the City of Cape Town is the pioneering agent for road safety. I can keep you here all day, but I want to conclude with our latest effort to improve road safety. </li><li>In October last year, we called on residents and stakeholders to collaborate with us as we review our Traffic Calming Policy and Road Safety Strategy by submitting ideas and solutions to make our roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists, passengers, scholars and public transport users in particular. We were blown away with the response, and received over 3 000 submissions. All of these were captured through the City's innovative Collaboration Platform, at Subcouncils, and libraries and will be assessed as we are reviewing the City's Road Safety Strategy and Traffic Calming Policy later this year. The City of Cape Town is serious about service delivery, and we are eager to listen to and learn from all of you over the next few days. I want to end off by saying that we will all agree that no amount of money, time and effort dedicated to solutions and innovations will succeed without behaviour change on our roads. Those who speed, drink and drive, ignore traffic signals, use cellphones while driving, and jaywalk must come to the party too. I thank you. End </li></ul>

2024-03-04T22:00:00Z

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