Building a Joburg for walkers

Infrastructure designed to improve walkability in Ivory Park was completed and handed to the community at the beginning of Transport Month.
ORDINARY Monday morning business carried on in the teeming streets of Ivory Park as newly constructed pavements received a final sweeping and people reclined on just-erected benches at the busy intersection of Second October Drive and Dlamini Drive in Ward 78 of the township.

New pavingNewly paved sidewalks (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)Kerbs, storm water drainage, taxi lay-byes, landscaping and public art were also built as part of the non-motorised transport projects of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), which were handed over on 3 October to fall in with the City’s Transport Month activities.

The member of the mayoral committee for transport, Rehana Moosajee, handed over the completed projects to the residents of various regions around the city, from Ivory Park to Zola in Soweto and Orange Farm.

“Transport is not only about cars, buses, taxis and trains; it is about people,” she said at the event in the Swazi Inn precinct in Ivory Park.

“The transport department has decided to focus on people who walk, but we still have to focus a lot more on infrastructure for those people.”

The project was undertaken as a way of bringing the focus around to infrastructure that would enable walking. “The most sustainable way to transport ourselves is to walk or cycle.

“It may seem like a small initiative, but for the people who walk here it is very important,” she said. The project involved constructing 1,1 kilometres of pavement and other infrastructure, at a cost of R2,4-million; it took 16 weeks to complete and created 65 jobs, 21 of which were given to women.

“We trust that as we hand over this infrastructure, it belongs to the people of Ivory Park and is an asset that people will own, take care of and look after.”

Pedestrian bridgeA pedestrian bridge is now open in Diepsloot (Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)Moosajee added that she hoped that if City officials had to return to the site in five years, they would find it in the same pristine condition, as part of the reason the project was embarked on was “to prove that we can have beautiful spaces in townships too”.

Part of providing beautiful spaces within townships included installing public art, which in the Swazi Inn precinct encompassed a concrete sculpture of children holding hands and playing together. It symbolises love and ubuntu, which is one of the transport department’s five values to encourage road safety.

“We hope that this investment will allow people to connect with each other, and that it is a space that people can take pride in.”

Moosajee also hoped that it was an area in which all people, especially women and children, would be safe. “I am glad the kerbs are high,” she said. “The pavements are for people not vehicles.”

Other areas that benefited from the non-motorised transport initiatives of the EPWP were Diepsloot, Zola in Soweto and Orange Farm. The project in ward 95 in Diepsloot will be handed over by Executive Mayor Parks Tau at a later stage, as not enough of the community was present on 3 October to hand over the development.