Cape Town - The City of Cape Town and other municipalities across the province have raised constitutional concerns and other objections to the Western Cape draft Provincial Transport Infrastructure Bill.
The objections were raised during the public hearing for the bill in the legislature on Tuesday night.
Mayoral committee member for urban mobility Rob Quintas said the City’s main worry about the bill was that it could potentially compromise the prerogative of the municipality to set out its developmental agenda, through the Integrated Development Plan, as provided for in the Constitution.
However, he said the City was eager for intergovernmental collaboration and supported the increased effort being placed in compelling and structuring engagements, between spheres of government and organs of state, around planning infrastructure, pipelines, and budget prioritisation.
He said the City wanted a further meeting with the province, in the spirit of intergovernmental co-operation, to discuss the issue of roads of joint significance and its role as the planning authority within the municipal boundary.
The City also wants to discuss railway lines, public transport roads, reserves with ancillary transport infrastructure, building lines and building restriction areas, as well as public transport roads.
Swellendam Municipality infrastructure services director Frikkie Erasmus said one of his concerns was that, as more and more cargo shifted from rail to road, the roads were forced to deal with burdens they were never built for.
Responding for the department, road planning director Carl October welcomed the City’s request for more meetings to discuss their issues and said that the issue Quintas had raised, about compromising the IDP process, had been noted.
Regarding truck stops and the provision of facilities along roads, deputy director Anthony Davis assured Erasmus that the bill does actually provide for the establishment of truck stops.