Pretoria-Joburg rail link heads underground
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) — A rail project to link South Africa's political and commercial capitals, already the continent's biggest construction site, will reach new depths this week as tunnelling begins below Johannesburg.
Nearly 15 months after groundwork began on the 25-billion-rand (3.6 billion dollar) Gautrain, the deployment of a tunnel boring machine -- shipped in from Germany -- signals that one of sub-Saharan Africa's most ambitious civil engineering projects should be in use for football fans attending the 2010 World Cup.
"Gautrain has reached a point of no return," said provincial transport minister Mbhazima Shilowa as the protective covers were removed from the TBM (tunnel-boring machine) last month.
"We are continuing towards the completion of the Gautrain and the TBM will speed up construction and enable us to finish within the time and the budget," Shilowa added.
Now that the machine has been assembled, the engineers will begin work this week to tunnel below the Johannesburg suburb of Rosebank -- one of 10 stations that will eventually make up Gautrain.
Once completed, Gautrain will enable passengers to travel between the government's headquarters in Pretoria and the country's largest city Johannesburg in just 42 minutes. Both cities form part of Gauteng province.
At the moment, commuters travelling between the two cities can spend up to two hours stuck in their cars during rush-hour on the infamous N1 highway.
Like many of Africa's major metropolises, rush hour in Johannesburg just gets longer and longer as more cars take to the roads.
But if city planners in such cities as Lagos and Luanda are still scratching their heads, authorities in South Africa hope Gautrain can point the way to a solution to transport problems and act as a stimulant for economic growth.
"It is indeed an aggressive response to key transport challenges such as congestion, efficient public transport, but most importantly the stimulation of economic development in the Gauteng region," Transport Minister Jeff Radebe told reporters on a recent site visit.
The scale of the project is evident from some of the figures reeled off by officials.
It will eventually stretch some 80 kilometers (50 miles), 15 kilometers of which will be underground. Eleven viaducts will be built.
The project is not due to be completed before 2011 but it should partially open in time for the World Cup finals in June and July of the previous year.
While some have questioned the expense involved in a country where nearly half of the population live below the poverty line, others say it is about time their daily travel nightmare is eased.
"When you get stuck in the jams, I get so angry," said 23-year-old Andre Breed, who travels every morning and evening between his home in northern Johannesburg and his workplace as a business consultant in Pretoria.
"One night, it took me two and a half hours to get home and there hadn't even been any kind of big accident."
The whites-only apartheid regime, which governed South Africa until 1994, invested little in the public transport system in the days when it restricted areas in which the majority black population were allowed.
While there is an existing rail network linking Johannesburg and Pretoria, it takes several hours to complete the journey and has become notorious for its levels of crime.
The majority of the population makes its way in often ramshackle collective taxis run by private operators.
The train will be the first of its kind on the continent.
While Casablanca, Algiers and Cairo all have metro systems, they cannot begin to compare with Gautrain, which should run at speeds of up to 160 kilometers per hour.
The exact ticket prices are still to be finalised, but Jack van der Merwe, Gautrain project leader, said the idea was to charge 60 cents per kilometre, "cheaper than to use a car."
A study released in April last year showed that 48 percent of people who regularly commute between Johannesburg and Pretoria would be prepared to leave their cars at home and take the Gautrain instead.
"As the congestion is getting worse, people see it as a viable option," adds van der Merwe.
