Soothed by the afterglow of the World Cup and the introduction and promise of new "effecient" modes of public transport, the South African public was soon after hit by the news of the proposed E-toll system, introduced and managed by Sanral. Whoever was in charge did not even deem it necessary to be subtle about the costs involved and the abruptness with which the system was introduced. One day, suddenly, the roads were clogged because these weird black-light shining arches started appearing all over the highways, seemingly overnight and out of nowhere. The next thing we knew, the newspapers were flooded with news of the absurd amounts the E-toll system would be stealing (yes, stealing) from people who drive to work to pay taxes which then get squandered by a corrupt and inefficient government. Taxes which were meant to keep our roads in order and to maintain our public transport systems to begin with...
When I first heard told of the Gautrain I thought to myself "I'll believe it when I see it" (judging from our track record up to that point). The notion of a world class public transport system in a country where nothing "public" is even remotely safe or hospitable enough to be deemed worthwhile, was laughable to say the least. My fears were confirmed when the construction took almost a year longer than it should have and went over budget by billions of rands. Now the train is almost complete, and it truly is a magnificent sight, but the price to travel via the system is nothing short of extortionate (over R100 from Rosebank to the ORT? Seriously?). The BRT system has also been one failure after the other. Apart from the possibility of being shot by annoyed, outlaw taxi drivers, the system also only targets certain areas thusfar and only runs certain times, leaving anyone outside that radius and time frame stranded.
The government and whoever has a finger in the pie in the E-toll profits have literally left everyone with no leg to stand on. There is no average employee in this country who can afford an unplanned R1000+ (in some cases) extra every month to cover toll fees. Sanral's justification of this absurd system is to encourage South Africans to utilise public transport more and to drive more economically (almost like going to bed earlier to save electricity?).
The fact of the matter is that there are no alternatives. There has been no viable or realistic attempt to introduce a Plan B and there is no way out. What are your possible options? Mini bus taxis? Public bus routes? Trains? All of the aforementioned are not only highly dangerous (ask anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes on a Jo'burg road), half of them are not licensed or even roadworthy or even in working order. The taxi and bus routes do not go past certain areas and the trains are even less accessible. The cost of taxis and buses will most surely also be influenced by the E-toll system, so that will pretty soon also become unaffordable. this leaves us with absolutely no alternatives. We have spent hundreds of thousands of rands on cars that we will not be able to use because driving them will simply be too expensive for the average Joe to afford.
All this lovely new system is going to cause is a massive blockage of back-roads as everyone is going to try and dodge highways. This will almost definitely lead to higher accident rates, more congestion and immense damage to the smaller, back roads which were not meant to handle the stress of the almost inevitable new load. Unemployment and poverty will most likely take a steep upward turn due to the influence on the cost of food as well as the new travel expense that no-one under a middle income salary can afford. By simply dismissing every single opposing point raised by the public and the public figures (such as DA members), Sanral in turn have started acting like the spiteful school principle: "I'm in charge, so you can whine all you want, I don't care and there's nothing you can do about it."
I have come to accept that Sanral is not going to change their stance and the government will not step in to manage the situation (that slice of pie is probably bigger than any of us can comprehend), but the thing that bothers me most is that we have not been granted a Plan B. We have not been given any way out or any form of alternative. At this stage they are telling us to simply abide by their rules or be damned. And the latter is a very realistic outcome for many should this system come into place as is envisioned.
