Cape Town - The Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (Cata), which has rejected the City of Cape Town’s development plans to include a MyCiTi station at the Nyanga public transport interchange (PTI), says they are still awaiting the final design outcome.
The City shared the first design of a proposed major revamp of the Nyanga taxi rank in November, where public transport services like minibus taxis, the Golden Arrow Bus Service (Gabs) and MyCiTi buses would be located in one area.
The concept design for the upgrade was also made available for comment.
Cata spokesperson Nkululeko Sityebi said plans to upgrade their taxi rank were welcome, however they “could never agree to MyCiTi operating in the same precinct as them”.
“We already have Golden Arrow Bus Services (Gabs) that operates in the area, so it’s not that we don’t want competition or for residents to (not) have other transportation options.
“As we previously stated, even for the City to think of having MyCiTI operate here is undermining our business.
“These are companies that are being subsidised, while we are not,” said Sityebi.
He said a meeting was held with the City, where they rejected the idea outright.
A second design excluding MyCiTi was shared with them. However, the City had made the facility smaller.
“One of the main complaints we made to the City over the years was about the limited space we have and even the hawkers are unhappy about it.
“We were surprised that in the second design the rank was not extended.
“There were also other issues and we were expected to meet the City again in December ,” said Sityebi.
As December was usually the busiest month for the taxi industry, Sityebi said they could not meet the City and they were awaiting another meeting where a proposed new design would be shared.
At the time Cape Town City Council mayoral committee (Mayco) member for urban mobility, Rob Quintas explained that the proposed facility with a new MyCiTi station was part of the roll-out of the service to the south-east of the metro.
“The proposed concept design intends to have all of these public transport services – minibus taxis, Gabs, and MyCiTi buses – located in one PTI to make it easy and convenient for commuters to transfer between different modes of transport, and also to provide them with a variety of transport options,” said Quintas.
The City last night said they would respond in due course as there was an ongoing meeting over the matter.
Cape Times