In addition to our March FCT MyCiTi Bus Report, Rouen Smit and Adriaan Bester, members of the Future Cape Town Mobility division, recently attended the two MyCiTi Bus meetings held in the CBD and Sea Point respectively. Along with other curious citizens, they got a chance to speak to the engineers and operational brains behind the MyCiTi Bus system.
Feeder Routes
One thing that we need to point out is that the Feeder bus routes have changed slightly in certain areas. If you look at the new updated routes (note that these are not final), one can see that the route running through Bo-Kaap and Tamboerskloof has been removed. After asking why this was done, the MyCiTi Bus engineering team said that they realised that these routes will actually require even smaller busses than the new 9m MyCiTi Feeder busses. They explained that it is currently being researched further and quipped with a name such as ‘MyCiTi Lite’ for some areas. They also pointed out that these smaller busses could then be utilised for other areas such as Ocean View drive in Sea Point and other hard to reach places. In the end, the City of Cape Town aims for at least one type of public transport to be reachable within 500m of every home.
We can’t wait!
Enclosed Feeder Stops
More details were revealed on the MyCiTi Bus Feeder enclosed stops. After Heritage approvals and consideration for public feedback (which closed on 31 March), the Cenotaph Memorial will be moved to a new location to make way for a six-platform station. This will be the closest stop to Cape Town Station for easy train access and could become a major hub for commuters to connect to other feeder lines.
The Gardens enclosed feeder station will have two platforms and a unique garden within the station that will surely make the public space below the bridge nicer than before. The final designs are still being discussed by affected businesses and residents in the area surrounding the feeder station, but will hopefully include two commercial spaces for commuters to shop. Will we see Woolies MyCiTi Stops? 🙂
The Queens Beach feeder bus stop has received all the necessary approvals and construction on that station is imminent. We will hopefully be able to provide pictures and designs of the final stops closed to their completion dates.
Feeder Busses
Here is a picture of the new feeder bus sporting their new livery to match up with their big trunk brothers.
These feeder busses should be operating on the feeder bus routes of the MyCiTi Bus from November 2012 onwards. (This date has been updated from our previous March post.)
An important feature of the feeder busses is that accessibility for all was kept in mind. The feeder busses will feature a special ‘CD ejection’ platform that will align with the stops. This will offer a seamless transition from feeder stop onto the bus.
Another interesting point made by the MyCiTi Bus team (and this possibly aligns to design thinking) is that to offer this seamless accessible platform to commuters, the feeder bus has to line up with a stop at all times. To ensure this, engineers understand South African driver habits, and that by simply creating ‘harbour type’ stop – which are great for traffic flow, will not enable this as people will just park in the feeder bus stop (this is a problem for bicycle lanes in the CBD as well).
To overcome this problem, they opted for the ‘peninsula type’ stop – which will require drivers behind a bus to stop for 30-40 seconds while passengers get on and off. A pain to drivers, but design thinking that makes sense. These ‘peninsula type’ designs will enable feeder busses to always have access to the stop. However, there will be some ‘harbour style’ stops at places, but only where it would not make sense for car drivers to park their cars.
