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AS REGULAR readers of this column will know (hi Adriaan! hi Niki!), one of my obsessions is with transport – non-motorised transport in particular. (Yeah, that’s transport jargon. Transport fundis toss off the acronym NMT all the time to refer to pedestrians and cyclists.)
Joburg is currently in the early stages of spending R300m on cycle lanes (bet you didn’t know that), and a bit of an update appeared in the morning Times newspaper last week.
A day later, an indignant SMS writer (good old Anon, a very opinionated person) responded: “If cyclists are to use the roads then they must pay licence fees. You cannot disrupt business for the sake of bicycles.”
There! Take that, you irritating little hobbyists!
The idea behind this aspect of Gauteng’s Integrated Transport Management Plan (ITMP25) is to go beyond cycling as sport – to get people out of their cars and onto their saddles, so we as a city can avoid this: “ITMP25 leader and Gautrain Management Agency CEO Jack van der Merwe said […] at a Transport Forum meeting that, if current trends continued, the weighted peak-hour road network speed would reduce from 48 km/h to below 10 km/h over the next 25 years, as peak-hour person trips were expected to grow from 2.2-million to 3.9-million.”
So far from ‘disrupting business’, dear Anon, the cyclist could be an economic saviour. Get enough people to give up their single-person motorised trips to work, and imagine the savings!
“The nation's commuters are adapting to increasing traffic congestion by building delays into their schedules, but at a cost of $121 billion in wasted time and fuel, according to an annual study of national driving patterns,” wrote Autoblog in 2013 about the US.
“The new report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute found that Americans wasted an average of $818 each sitting in traffic in 2011. That also meant more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.”
Autoblog went on to note that the worst commute in the country was in Washington, where a trip that should take only 30 minutes now takes three hours. If I have to go anywhere in rush-hour Joburg today, I routinely allow two hours for a 30-45 minute trip.
Sometimes I get there early enough to sit and read my book for 20 minutes; all too often, I make it with a comfortable five to ten minutes to spare. This wasted time and petrol and wear and tear on vehicles is a huge cost, and should have us all applauding those brave souls who choose to commute by bicycle, not pursing up our lips and demanding licence fees.
What worries me is how little the general public seems to know about the ITMP25. There’s been some press on the subject from time to time, but it’s usually rather vague.
Like this report from our own News24, last year: “The department aims to distribute 3 000 bicycles towards scholar transport and create 5km of cycle lanes in Vosloorus and 10km in Kaalfontein." Yes, but where are these lanes going to be? Would-be cycle-commuters want to know!
This is what I would do if I were doing communications around NMT:
• Create an ongoing buzz
Put together a separate website full of regularly updated info, showing plans as they evolve, with lots of visual and interactive energy. (Lots of video possibilities showing what fun it is to cycle in cities like Copenhagen and Vienna, like this quote: “If you make the bicycle the quickest way to get around the city, you’re going to get everyone and his dog to do it.”)
Show schlebs and ordinary people in ads, on radio and on billboards, talking about how excited they are about using NMT to get around.
Get cyclists tweeting their cycling experiences – good and bad; it’s awareness that counts. Tweet up a storm of info aside from that.
• Reveal the Secret Plan
There is currently a map, created by an NGO, Johannesburg Urban Cyclists Association (JUCA): “The map shows safer, quieter and least hilly cycling routes through the City. Showing the new bicycle lanes built by the City, as well as those that will be built over the next year, the map also includes sites of interest, such as public swimming pools, markets and parks, and key public transport nodes (such as train stations).
"The aim of the map is to show that it is possible to cycle around Johannesburg, and to encourage people to try cycling as a transport option. The map will be distributed for free at tourism agencies, cycling shops, universities, public offices and elsewhere. People can also request copies of the map by contacting JUCA.”
I’ve sent an email and hope to hear from them soon. But this is a print map, quite a big fold-out from the looks of it, which seems (from the outlets mentioned) to be aimed at more upmarket cyclists.
There should be online versions too; maps of individual sections; billboards showing where new cycle lanes are, and showing the routes to come in a specific area. And this should be done, not by an under-resourced NGO, but by the cities themselves.
Put regular news stories in local knock-and-drops and online, area by area, and show how the plan is unfolding.
• Help get people cycling
Bikes can be expensive. There’s a Bicycle Empowerment Network in Cape Town – anything similar in Gauteng? (And if not, can we start something?) Where would a cash-strapped would-be cyclist get wheels? This message needs to be circulated often too.
What are your views on this? Let us know and you could get published.
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on twitter.
