Tag Archives: Cape Town Stadium

Cape Town and Winelands on a roll with cycle events this week, outrage at Cycle Rage!

Argus Cycle Tour Suikerbossie Whale CottageCape Town and the Winelands region is rolling in cyclists visiting to participate in one or more of a host of cycling events from today onwards.   As more and more cyclists are taking to the road, often selfishly to the detriment of motorists, anger is building up from motorists against cyclists.

Today the Bestmed Tour de Boland commences, and will be ridden in four stages of 121 – 145 km per day over the next four days.  The race begins in Franschhoek and stage one ends at Helshoogte Pass; stage 2 is from Stellenbosch to Tulbagh; stage 3 covers Tulbagh to Riebeek Kasteel; and the last stage of the race is ridden from Riebeek Kasteel to the Franschhoek Pass.   The organisers want to offer the road riders a good challenge on a European cycle race standard combined with the best of beautiful Boland views.

On Sunday the 37th Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Momentum Cycle Tour takes place, with 35000 cyclists participating in what has become the world’s largest timed cycle race.  Most of the Cape Town city centre will be closed to traffic on Sunday morning, and all of Victoria Road from Hout Bay through Camps Bay to Bantry Bay and Beach Road in Sea Point is closed to traffic for the whole day, the race starting in the city centre and ending at the Cape Town Stadium.  The event generates R450 million for the economy of the Western Cape, says provincial Tourism Minister Alan Winde.

The ABSA Cape Epic takes place from 23 – 30 March, a tough endurance race covering picturesque areas in the Cape Winelands, and generates about R218 million for the province.

Most cyclists have left their getting fit to the last minute, and are taking to the city streets to get ready for Sunday.  Many Continue reading →

GrandWest Sweet Service and Charly’s Bakery Sour Service Awards!

Carlos Santana 1795604_10153872652095511_433576210_nThe Sweet Service Award goes to GrandWest for its professional handling of the crowds attending the Carlos Santana concert on Tuesday evening.  This Award is shared with William of Computicket in Camps Bay, who connected me with a customer in Sea Point, wishing to sell her ticket due to a knee operation the day before the concert, which had been sold out months in advance.  Not being partial to crowds in big spaces, I was surprised about how smoothly everything went: no traffic problems close by (compared to the Cape Town Stadium concerts), easy to find parking close by, an excellent quality seat, lovely seat neighbours, a very tough security man preventing anyone further back blocking the view of those sitting in the front row of our block by wanting to dance in front of them,  the incredibly low parking cost of R10, and the ease of leaving without any major traffic blockages.  The entrance boom did have a technical problem as we Continue reading →

MyCiTi Bus losses: will Cape Town ratepayers have to pay?

My CiTi Bus imagesA hard-hitting Open Letter to Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and Councillor Brett Herron was published in the Letters page of the Cape Times last week, and echoes many of our observations about the failure of the MyCiTi Bus service on the city centre and Camps Bay routes.  The newspaper also published a defensive response from Councillor Brett Herron, Mayoral Committee member for Transport and ultimately responsible for the city’s public transport service.

Emiritus Professor of Forensics at UCT Deon Knobel, a respected pathologist and lecturer, has observed, as have we (we have Tweeted this regularly) that the MyCiTi Buses travelling in Camps Bay and along Kloof Street are still close to empty three months after the inception of the routes.  Our blogpost after a trial trip from Camps Bay to the Silo section (previously called the Clocktower) of the V&A Waterfront highlighted that the trip took too long (90 minutes one way), and that commuters who wanted to get onto the bus did not have a MyCiTi Bus card with which to pay for their trip.  Extensive queues are still seen in Camps Bay, waiting for taxis, despite the MyCiTi Bus charging next to nothing!

Professor Knobel’s letter documented his observations over the last month in Gardens, Kloof Street, Kloofnek Road, and Camps Bay that not one of the MyCiTi Buses had ‘more than five or six passengers in the bus, and not infrequently no more than three or four. One bus even carried the amazing figure of one passenger’.  In addition, he had observe eight ‘virtually empty‘ buses on the N2 highway, returning to the city from the airport.  Given the poor occupancy of the MyCiTi Buses, Professor Knobel asked De Lille and Herron the following questions: Continue reading →