• The Langa Bicycle Hub aims to encourage community members to use bicycles as an effective alternative mode of transport. 
• Currently, there are no bicycle lanes to accommodate a growing number of individuals cycling from Langa to the city centre daily for work, says a cycling advocate.
• The city, however, says its planning does take into account the safety of pedestrians and cyclists. 
• For climate change news and analysis, go to News24 Climate Future.

Every day, a relatively large group of people cycle out of Langa and into the Cape Town City Centre for work and school.

About 65 people get on their bicycles, and take the longer route through Athlone and Mowbray instead of the N2, because there are currently no Bicycle lanes to accommodate the growing body of individuals cycling to work, said Mzikhona Mgedle, founder and managing director of the Langa Bicycle Hub.

Langa Bicycle Hub partnered with the African Climate Alliance (ACA) - a youth-led organisation advocating for climate justice - this week to lead participants on a bicycle trip from Mowbray to Langa. The route also went through Athlone and Sybrand Park. The trip was the opening event in the ACA’s second annual Cape Town Climate Week.

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ACA programme manager Gabriel Klaasen said that by cycling to Langa, they wanted to emphasise the link between climate change and spatial injustice. Essentially, showing participants the lived realities of the people most affected by spatial injustices.

"A big reason why we hoped to go from Mowbray to Langa, going through Athlone, going through Sybrand Park and ending up in Langa was because we wanted to break the stigma of 'the Cape Flats is only this dangerous place,'" said Klaasen.

After cycling the lengthy and windy trip between Mowbray and the Langa Civic Hall, both organisations facilitated debate about intersectional socioeconomic and environmental justice problems.

Many Cape Flats residents rely primarily on public transport to travel to work and school.

"Unfortunately, only recently our train system has been brought online. Again, running an hour by hour and in only certain areas, of course, which is not convenient for anybody living on the Cape Flats," said Klaasen.

"Then, of course, we see the way that our MyCitis (buses) can't go into other communities. They are not running in those spaces yet because, unfortunately, there's conflict within that space," he added.

By advocating for cycling as a more eco-friendly mode of transport, the ACA and Langa Bicycle Hub highlighted the lack of the necessary safety infrastructure as well as baseless stereotypes associated with the Cape Flats.

Think bike

The Langa Bicycle Hub aims to encourage community members to use bicycles as an effective alternative mode of transport. They intend to positively influence the community of Langa while providing access to a sustainable and affordable form of transport.

Mgedle said they are working to create jobs for young people in the community, where they can do deliveries with bicycles. They have also spoken to government officials about making roads in the area more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly.

Despite the organisation's clear affiliation with the Langa community, the Langa Bicycle Hub has highlighted the lack of safety infrastructure for cyclists trying to get to work from multiple townships on the Cape Flats.

While a motor vehicle trip to the city centre from Langa would usually take less than 20 minutes with no traffic, the trip is significantly longer by bicycle. A bicycle trip between the two locations tends to take longer because there are no connected bicycle lanes along the N2, according to the Langa Bicycle Hub. Current infrastructure prioritises vehicles, despite the apparent benefits of connected cycling lanes, they argue.

READ | Meet the two youths advocating for a more 'bike-friendly' Cape Town

The government's failure to reassess apartheid spatial planning has created a city that is forced to rely on what is already an unreliable public transport system. The lack of reliable state-owned public transport systems, such as bus and railway services, was highlighted during the taxi strike, which brought the city to a complete standstill earlier this year.

"For some communities, it's still close enough to cycle, but the problem is the lack of infrastructure," said Roland Postma, managing director of the non-profit Young Urbanists South Africa.

Postma explained that while there are cycle lanes in Cape Town, there is a lack of barriers that separate cyclists from cars and taxis, making it difficult to cycle. He also said that the cycling lanes were built in isolation, so they are very fragmented and therefore not connected, which makes cycling dangerous and inconvenient.

He also shared views that the city is designed to accommodate cars but not cyclists. The reality is that the majority of people travel by public transport - including private, non-state-controlled taxis. Car owners are in the minority, he said.

Postma explained that "Taxis are actually statistically the backbone [of public transport] as well as walking. We are actually a taxi [and] public transportation dependent country."

Councillor Rob Quintas, the city's mayoral committee member for urban mobility, told News24 that "the safety of pedestrians and cyclists is a key consideration in all of the city's planning. At a strategic level, the city's Comprehensive Integrated Transport Plan (CITP) supports and promotes safety of all road users, including cyclists," said Qunitas.

"Cycling infrastructure planning is included in all of the city's road and transport programmes wherever we roll out infrastructure for the MyCiti bus service, widen or upgrade roads as part of our Congestion Relief Programme, or undertaking general road maintenance," he added.

Safe public transport?

In a separate public discussion, organised by ACA and civil society organisation #UniteBehind, challenges people in Cape Town experience while using public transport services came under the spotlight.

Many of the participants listed concerns related to punctuality, and safety in and around taxi, bus and train stations. Among issues raised was that taxi drivers did not care about their passengers' safety as taxis are often overloaded, forcing passengers to stand in the aisle near the door or sit on "laptops" - wooden planks that are placed between two aisle seats - which aren't secured to the vehicle.

They have also raised some concerns about how taxi drivers will drop their passengers off in the middle of oncoming traffic.

READ | Cape Town came close to another taxi strike, operators tell court, and still at risk of 'calamity'

South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) spokesperson Mmatshikhidi Rebecca Phala told News24 that the taxi industry has developed a flagship programme called Hlokomela. The programme employs fleet managers who inspect the vehicles and evaluate the vehicle's "roadworthiness" before it leaves a taxi rank to transport passengers.

Phala said that the fleet managers regularly stop taxis on the road, similarly to law enforcement, to ensure "that vehicles are not overloaded, or a driver has a safety belt on, in possession of valid documentation and is fit to drive." She said that the patrols and inspections led by fleet managers are meant to complement efforts made by law enforcement.

Some participants contributed to discussions about the City of Cape Town's transport system by expressing concerns over bus schedules, saying they are often left stranded because buses stop operating after 17:00.

While many use Uber as an alternative mode of transport, they also complain that it is not always cheap and safe to use.

Although train services are running again, they only operate on an hourly basis, which is not practical and efficient. This could cause a delay for commuters who rely on the railway system to travel across the city.

One of the claims made is that there are people living on the railway lines in areas like Philippi, Langa, and Khayelitsha, which makes it difficult for trains to operate in those areas.

Others mentioned that there are only two (taxis and busses) modes of public transport systems in some areas - which means that if either of those services suddenly becomes unavailable, it could cause a complete standstill, as this became evident during the taxi strike just a month ago.

Klaasen said the ACA is hopeful that the workshops in the past week would inspire people to keep calling for decision-makers to "reimagine what our public transport system could look like".

This includes considering the negative impact of mass usage of motorised vehicles and privately owned vehicles.

"It is not healthy for people, it's not beneficial to anybody ... We need to look at public transport where people can drive together. Limit the emissions that's pushed out and also make sure that they have access to that (public transport) being affordable as well."