Safer Streets For South Africa Are Possible, But We Need Your Help
We are doing a lot to make our streets safer across urban South Africa, but we need your help and ideas!
South Africa is facing a road safety crisis that, in turn, is fuelling our climate, economic, and biodiversity crises and making us a more poorer country as a result.
Young Urbanists, through our many programs like the Active Mobility Forum and our recently launched public and private partnership called the Safe Passage Programme with the Suppliers Development Initiative (SDI) Micro-Enterprise Trust, alongside our partners in government, the private sector, and academia, are focusing our priorities to talk less and do more when it comes to road safety.
We are writing this update not just to inform you but actively ask your help to be part of this change.
The Role of the Community in Road Safety
As active participants in the City of Cape Town's Road Safety Ideas Round, we've demonstrated that our ideas are not just theoretical; they have the potential to lead to significant improvements in road safety. This initiative by the Urban Mobility Directorate, concluding on December 10th, is a crucial platform for voicing concerns and suggestions. It's a call to action for residents to contribute their insights on traffic calming measures and road safety enhancements.
To help, we have put a comprehensive template together that you can access.
Our focus has been primarily on theme 01, which revolves around the safety of pedestrians and other non-motorized transports (NMTs). This focus is crucial, considering the vulnerability of these road users in urban traffic scenarios.
We were even cited in several news media publications from a radio interview with Lester Kiewit, a new article IOL news and our biggest exposure an article in the People’s Post part of the wider News24 Media House.
To summarise, here is how young get get involved:
Submit ideas and use our template to guide your thinking or do a quick search!
On the platform, vote for your favourites and;
Share with your family and friends to vote for their favourites or even better to make use of our template to submit their ideas!
You have till the 10th of December, every idea, vote and share counts! We will be making a report slash concept note that we will submit to the City and the public.
Strand Street Quarry Redevelopment and other submissions
Whilst the comment period ended last Sunday, our team put together a comprehensive comment to make pedestrian and NMT safety the top priority for this once is a life-time development to afford the residents of Bo-Kaap a multi-functional public space.
We are proud of the team to show what stage 01 and stage 02 of this development should prioritise. You can read our full comment here.
Other submission that we are working on are:
M3 Road “Upgrade” - see here
Stage 02 of the R300 “Upgrade” - see here
To help make the Koeberg Interchange Safer - in progress
Phase 04 of City-wide NMT - in progress
Join our submission sub-committee if you are keen to be involved in our submissions. We not only cover safer roads but everything that falls under urbanism and is South African based whether it is rural or urban.
Insights from the 2030 National Road Safety Summit
The recent 2030 National Road Safety Summit, hosted by Uber South Africa and led by Ofentse Madisha alongside the Department of Transportation and the Road Traffic Management Corporation, highlighted the importance of public involvement in road safety. Our session, co-facilitated by Rehana Moosajee and featuring experts like Karien Venter, Dr. Mmakwena Modipa, and others, emphasized the need for action-oriented approaches to road safety, starting with road design and safety programs.
From our session , we've identified three pivotal actions to be implemented in 2024:
Centralized Road Safety Data Portal: Spearheaded by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), this initiative aims to compile and manage road safety research data. A working group with representatives from RTMC and key research organizations will oversee this endeavor.
Unified Road Safety Campaign: This campaign will focus on cultural change through behavioral change strategies, psychological principles, and innovative advertising. The goal is to create a more safety-conscious community.
Healed Community' Pilot Project: This project will focus on creating safer, more sustainable, and child-friendly environments through street experiments and the application of research findings. It will also address issues like alcohol and substance misuse within the community.
If you want to find out more or help with these 3 actions, please email us and make reference to this article or the action:
Safer Streets Programme with Uber South Africa
While it is still early days, we are set to launch our partnership between Uber South Africa and Young Urbanists aimed at enhancing urban mobility and ensuring safer streets. Its primary goals include:
Enhancing the Cycling Community: This involves creating awareness about the synergy between bike lanes and ridesharing services, thereby integrating cycling as a key component of city mobility options.
Assessment of Urban Spaces: The partnership focuses on mapping and evaluating the condition of cycling lanes and pedestrian areas, alongside identifying crucial stakeholders, to foster a people-first environment in South African cities.
Stakeholder Dialogue: It facilitates essential conversations among stakeholders to share knowledge, understand diverse perspectives, and find common solutions for the optimal use of urban spaces for mobility.
Urban Redesign Proposals: A unique aspect is proposing redesigns for selected streets in major cities, focusing on principles of equity, justice, environmental sustainability, and safety for all road users. We will be linking this to the Safe Passage Programme.
Educational and Training Materials: The initiative involves creating content aimed at improving awareness among riders and drivers about cyclists, emphasizing behaviors that ensure cyclist safety.
Advocacy for Safer Streets: Finally, it advocates for safer streets through various methods, starting with the intersection of cycling lanes and e-hailing services and extending to encompass all forms of urban mobility.
This partnership is a crucial step in aligning with our commitment to safer, more sustainable urban transport solutions.
Please RSVP for your interest of the launch of the programme in the last week of February. A date and time will be communicated shortly with actions for the programme.
Zero Wait: Contributing to Zero Deaths, Zero GHG Emissions
The soon-to-be-launched "Zero Wait" campaign aims to evaluate signalized crossings, categorizing them as either good or bad. This initiative seeks to gather essential data regarding pedestrian infrastructure and collaborate with the government to revise standards, prioritizing pedestrian and non-motorized transport (NMT) safety in our infrastructure planning.
Our team has already pinpointed the shortcomings in South African pedestrian crossing standards, including both the South African Road Traffic Management System (SARTMS) and practices in Cape Town, especially when compared to those in New York.
In South Africa, standards typically allow for shorter green light durations for pedestrians, based on an assumption of faster walking speeds. This results in reduced crossing time, which could compromise pedestrian safety. Furthermore, unlike New York, which includes a solid red buffer at the end of the crossing phase to enhance safety, the South African system lacks such a buffer period.
These disparities suggest that South African standards would benefit from updates, such as extending crossing times and incorporating additional safety buffers, to be more in line with contemporary practices like those observed in New York.
We will be doing our tests on around more than 50 signalised crossing in Cape Town and be launching our campaign with a website that will be linked to current in development AMF website for earnest 2024.
But, why just signalised crossings?
Excellent question. We plan to broaden the scope of the project to encompass various aspects of road infrastructure, including intersections, cycling lanes, and zebra crossings.
If you want to be part of the WhatsApp group for Cape Town to roll out this initiative, please join.
Zero Wait is a project by the AMF where for our first round we received funding from the Charge the Streets and Clean Air Mobility Collective.
And Much More
Road safety will remain a key facet in all our programmes, projects and partnerships that we are undertaking which will featured in the following initiatives as we go from 2023 into 2024:
Urban Design and Mobility Forum: We will dive into specifics when it comes to road safety through our many forums and we will soon announce on our plans regarding Street Experiments that will form a distinct programme between us and Urban Mobility. Look out for new dates where we host a Forum with the Mayors Office.
Street Experiments: We are working to fully launch this programme is earnest 2024 and start with a few pilot sites across Cape Town before we take it up north. Think of Street Experiments to be like Open Streets Cape Town 2.0 but instead of being a singular, expensive event, but to be on a more permanent basis. Have a look at this website around Street Experiments. We will be using any Open Streets going forward to highlight the need for small, cheap and impactful everyday changes.
Move Cape Town: This is something we are working on to show how transversal we can be to use media and our networks to get corporate support for our programmes to make cycling, walking and other NMT users a reliable, safer and enjoyable alternative. Thank you Lisha Klopper’s, the AMF Communication Committee and everyone who is helping us put together a strong media and partnership arm for our work at AMF with all our partners. Road safety will be a key facet of Move Cape Town and all our projects going forward for 2024.
New AMF with a twist: Yes, that is right. The AMF is receiving some serious love from a new website and a new structure to ensure it has the right support and teeth to become it’s own entity away from Young Urbanists. With this new change will come a programme to really help consolidate programmes to enhance the safety and accessibility towards NMT by running programmes like BikeBus, Learn2Cycle and GirslOnBikes South Africa wide. Watch this space.
Trans-Safe Collaboration with UCT: We are working with Prof. Marianne Vanderschuren and PhD candidate Owen Mwaura to identify 7 locations for Cost-Benefit Analysis in low to medium income areas to design and plan for low-cost interventions to enhance pedestrian safety for vulnerable road users.
Safe Passage Programme: One of our flagship programmes is currently undertaking a comprehensive concept plan for phase 2.1 for Safe Passage 01 from Langa to CBD.
With phase 1.1 taking place soon in earnest 2024 to upgrade Bree Street and then subsequent phase 1.2 for Albert, we are keen to make the NMT stretch between Langa and Athlone safer for scholars, pedestrians, cyclists and as-well as last-mile delivery workers Green Riders. We will be doing this through the following ways:
Working on a Langa Master Plan with community groups, sub-council and the City of Cape Town.
Creating NMT jobs for both Lang and Athlone through Green Riders.
Smart poles to bring lighting, camera’s and potential Wi-Fi to the areas.
Bollards on the class 3 cycling lanes.
Ensure NMT and pedestrian continuity.
Maintenance plan to keep the NMT class 1 corridor clean.
Work with local community watch groups and the broader Community Policing Forum to patrol the area.
Support the recently established Friends of the Nantes.
Work with the Liveability Urban Waterway Team from the City of Cape Town.
Other activations such as potential soccer pitch and;
Running and supporting programme through our local partners Langa Bicycle Hub.
Conclusion
As we move into 2024, our collective efforts, encompassing government, private sector, academia, and civil society, are aimed at reversing the trends in our road crisis. Even if it means saving just one life, our collaborative and action-oriented approach marks a significant step towards safer, more inclusive streets in South Africa.
For those who are not a member, you can either become a YU or a AMF member. We cannot do it alone and need all the help. Please share and follow us.
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