Taxis Citichat 28 January 2000

CITICHAT 1/2000- 28 January 2000


Taxi Projects Review

After a four week break from Citichat, regrettably not from office, it’s time to get communications started again – trust you all had a ‘merry millennium’ and are hard at it back at the salt mines. Lot’s of things happening in regard to the city, mostly positive, so I thought it would be good to begin with a review of where we are in relation to the many projects on the go as we move into 2000. Will probably need a few weeks to review these or the epistle will get too long,

Two major issues that will impact on the visual quality of the city environment relate to taxis and informal trading and the initiatives to formalise these and clean up the streets will be moving up a gear during the year. This week, taxi projects.

The Park Central Taxi Rank Project which was formerly known as Jack Mincer, (see Citichat 41/1999 - 3 December '99) was opened in February last year. It accomodates 2000 short distance taxis serving 100 000 commuters per day. A facilities management tender which resulted in an award to a facility’s management company involving the taxi associations, has enabled operational systems to be refined and operational problems to be resolved quickly and efficiently. Outdoor advertising was let and signage installations commenced. Negotiations in the latter half of the year resulted in the development of a petrol filling station again involving the taxi associations as operators. The service station construction is virtually complete and it will commence operations very shortly.

A disappointment has been the inability to raise finance for the construction of the retail component notwithstanding that it is fully let and with 70% to nationals! Sounds like an opportunity to me!

Although not related to taxis, a number of other projects are underway or planned in the geographic area of the Park Central Taxi Rank, two that come quickly to mind are the Western Joubert Park Pilot Precinct Project and the purchase by the Johannesburg Housing Company of the former Landrost Hotel to be re-developed as residential units early in the year.

The second taxi project was the Park City Taxi Rank. The deck was completed during 1999 and the designs for the top structures, including informal trading facilities and an integral stacking and rank access system, were also finalised and signed off by the relevant taxi associations. The construction of the top structures will be completed by March. The successful implementation of this project is dependent on two other initiatives, the conversion of the Kazerne Parking Garage partly into a stacking facility but also partly continuing to provide public parking and the upgrading of De Villiers Street. Both were put out to tender last year and will be complete to dovetail with the opening of the Park City facility at the end of March.. The aim in fact is to have these facilities operational before the Easter peak period.

The third taxi project making progress is that at Westgate. Funding was secured from the Provincial Government and a redesign, development agreement, land consolidation and town planning requirements achieved by the end of last year. Support for the project was concluded with taxi associations and the bus company and informal traders relocated to allow for construction to proceed. Phase one construction will be completed by the end of February at which stage the retail phase will commence.

The off-and-on MetroMall project is now definitely on. Last year saw funding for the detailed design being secured from Provincial Government and an in-principle agreement being reached for the inclusion of a portion of Transnet land This in turn allowed a detailed design framework to be undertaken and the design developed to a stage to allow costings to be prepared. Fifteen short distance taxi associations have given in-principle support for the development and will be concluding user agreements during the coming months. Detailed market research is currently being done in relation to the inclusion of some 1000 informal trading sites in the project. The target is to move onto site during the first half of this year.

Again, two interesting and critical spinoffs of this development are the Mandela Bridge and motorway ramps providing access into Newtown and some 600 housing units which form part of the Presidential Job Summit Project. Incidentally funding for the Mandela Bridge has been secured, tenders will be adjudicated shortly and construction will commence within months.

The fifth major taxi ranking facility for the city is at Faraday. This is envisaged as a multi-modal transport facility for rail, bus and taxi passengers.Support from the taxi associations has been secured and it is hoped that detailed design can commence in the early part of this year.

Two years ago when I started writing about these projects in Citichat they were little more than names on the Inner City Section 59 Committee project schedule. Today, as you will see from this update, they are at various stages of concrete development and, certainly by mid-year, the city will be experiencing the benefits.

Regards,