Tarred, (un)deterred?

The good news is that I got a new job.  It’s an exciting one that fits well with my unique mid-PhD situation and promises a whole big office full of new smart people to meet.  Working from home has been good for paying the bills and having lots of time for ridiculously long walks, but bad for isolation.  Now the new job may bring about what everyone has said is inevitable: getting a car.

The problem is that my new office is at Helen Joseph Hospital in Westdene, but I also will need to make frequent trips to a clinic up in Fourways.  From Killarney to Westdene to Fourways…yep, I’ve pretty much got Jo’burg covered.  I was psyched to find a bus to Fourways, but getting there from Westdene is another story.  I haven’t made up my mind yet, and certainly I’ll try out a few bus options before I make any big purchases, but it’s not looking like a perfect bus route is going to miraculously appear. 

To get to Helen Joseph yesterday for a meeting, I took a taxi in the morning for R110 ($15) one-way – clearly not a viable long-term option.  When I left, I purposefully tried to avoid anyone noticing that I was headed out of the parking lot on foot, discreetly stopping at the end to swap my classy heels for my walking flats.  This is one aspect of being a car-free Jo’burger that is unfailingly frustrating: when people hear that I walk or take the bus, they balk.  This follows with declarative sentences starting with “You can’t…”  Actually, I can!  I do!  Just because you never have doesn’t mean that it’s not possible to get from point A to point B by foot or by bus.  People’s faces divulge that they assume that I’m naïve or somehow misinformed to make the choices that I do, when in fact, I spend a lot more time considering my trips than the average Jo’burger.

The walk back was just so-so.  Fortunately, it was a Friday, the weather was great, and I was feeling giddy from a new job offer so I didn’t really notice the 8.5 km (5 mile) distance.   But let’s just say that the walk wasn’t one of Jo’burg’s finest: dusty dirt paths instead of pavement, traffic lights out, roadworks with fresh tar that I’m still scrubbing off my legs!  All and all, an hour and a half (each way) walk to work is pretty impractical.

I had just missed a Metrobus by about 30 seconds, so that was promising, if not bad timing.  More interesting was the Rea Vaya station under construction right outside the hospital!  This new bus rapid transit (BRT) system garnered tremendous praise during the World Cup, which was especially gratifying given the horrific events that occurred during the planning and construction stages.  While the idea of zipping to work rapid-transit style excites me, a system is only as good as the locations it serves, and I’d still have to make tricky connections in town to access the Rea Vaya. 

Maybe all the Jo’burgers who had their first public transportation experience on the Rea Vaya during the World Cup now will understand how how urgently it needs to be expanded to serve broader locations.  Previously Saxonwold residents had objected to a proposed Rea Vaya Oxford Road expansion – a public transport improvement that would have a hugely positive impact on my life, as well as countless others – and I wonder if the glowing reviews during the World Cup changed anyone’s mind.  Scores of people are relying on the BRT every day as safe, efficient transportation between Soweto and the CBD, but others view it as a charming novelty of the World Cup: just a memory of those vuvuzela-filled happy days and proof that South Africa fulfilled its promises.  I say let's keep it, let's use it, and by all means, let's expand it so that it can really live up its potential as an essential public transportation system in this city that so sorely needs new options.  Then South Africa will show that it not only delivers world-class transportation systems because Sepp and the boys are watching, but because its citizens deserve the best.