I am thrilled that parts of the Central Line train service are back up. This is in many ways a giant leap forward. While the service is still a limited one, it is good news that some commuters on the Central Line route can now have access to a train service.
Hopefully the human and infrastructure challenges that still exist beyond Bonteheuwel Station can now also be speedily fixed.
But as I was scrolling through sports channels over the weekend, I saw the one thing that jumps out at me when I watch South African sports events: empty to quarter-full stadiums.
Having travelled through cities in other parts of the world on big and small sporting days, the big indicator of a local derby or a big final are the full stadiums and the train services. Trains and stadiums are filled and festooned with sports fans. Both lovers of the particular game and supporters of a playing team go into full-out fan mode on the day.
The one thing that connects the fans, the game and the “gees” is the public train service. Anyone who has taken the Circle Line underground train from London Paddington and changed at King’s Cross St Pancras to the Piccadilly Line and then on to the Arsenal Underground Station will know the joys and jostling of that train ride.
The train journey in and of itself is a tourist experience.
The two glaring factors in South African sporting events are empty stadiums and a two-hour traffic jam trying to exit a stadium like the Cape Town Stadium. On days that all 55 000 seats at the Cape Town stadium are filled for a concert or an international match, you can bet on being stuck in traffic for hours around the stadium precinct.
The solution to filling our sports stadium attendance and in fixing our traffic nightmares such as finding parking and exiting the precinct, is trains.
In Cape Town it is abundantly clear that the Green Point precinct, abutted by a very narrow Waterfront road network and exit roads that are filled with multiple other users, cannot cope with the traffic.
The knock-on effect is that sporting events will continue to have low crowd attendance because there are not non-motorised transport options. This affects the revenue that local franchises are able to generate and it sends the message that only people with cars can attend or participate in these events.
A safe and effective train and bus service that services all major events must be an agenda item on Public Mobility Portfolio committees at all government levels. All sporting codes are losing money through a lack of crowd attendance.
The lack of an efficient and safe transport system will continue to scupper the well-being of local sports franchises that make use of the big stadiums because the public transport infrastructure issues are not addressed.
It is in the best interest of franchises like Western Province rugby, cricket, netball or football to engage the bus, train and taxi services to have special services that bring fans to stadiums and take them back home safely again.
Our sporting codes and the sporting career paths of our youth suffer early deaths because they play in empty stadiums or sport fields.
Anyone who has played at even the most basic level of any sports code will tell you of the impact a full stadium has on performance.
How tragic is it that the government is not seeing and acting with sufficient urgency that something as innocuous as public transport can have a massive effect on both the career of a player and on the resources the franchise or club has available to develop their players.
Cape Town Stadium should have a direct rail service. We can’t be sitting in cars for three hours to get home. Sport fields and stadiums should be built around train stations. That’s transport science 101.
* Lorenzo A. Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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