Major transport boost in one of South Africa’s biggest cities

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says that the city has several projects in the pipeline to mitigate congestion, including getting its trains up and running and finishing the “unfinished highway”.

This follows the presentation of Cape Town’s “Invested in Hope” budget on Thursday, which emphasised shielding residents from rising costs and significant investments into security and infrastructure.

In an interview following the presentation, Hill-Lewis was probed on how the city plans to deal with the immense congestion in the CBD and Atlantic Seaboard.

The metro was recently listed as the fifth most congested city in the world, according to the 2024 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.

“In the medium term, we are really hopeful that the trains will get back up and running. I really celebrate the news that they did the first testing on the central line last week.” Hill-Lewis told Cape Talk.

“That’s Prasa (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa), and it looks like we might get back up and running with the central line relatively soon, which will make a huge difference.”

Cape Town recently told MyBroadband that it plans to make rail the backbone of its public transport service.

The mayor also mentioned that the city plans to finish the “unfinished freeway” or Foreshore Freeway Bridge that runs next to Helen Suzman Boulevard.

City engineer Solomon Simon Morris designed the bridge in the 1960s to alleviate future traffic by helping commuters avoid the intersections below it.

However, construction of the bridge, which began in the 1970s, was abruptly halted in 1977 due to alleged budget constraints.

Since then, the bridge has become somewhat of an iconic landmark, with Hyundai proposing the construction of a massive vuvuzela for the 2010 FIFA World Cup to sound at the beginning of every match and the famous First for Women advertisement.

Rob Quintas, Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for urban mobility, told Top Auto in 2024 that the city was busy with a Foreshore Freeway Precinct scoping study and that a key priority was to develop an integrated transport and land use solution.

According to Quintas, the study revealed that the current freeway viaducts carry up to 7,000 cars per hour in both directions during peak periods.

Another way Cape Town plans to mitigate congestion is by expanding its MyCiti bus service, which operates over 40 routes across parts of the metro and offers an alternative to private transport.

“The City is further expanding the MyCiTi service through transformative flagship projects like the R6.3-billion new MyCiti Bus route development to link Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain with Claremont and Wynberg,” the City of Cape Town said.

Budget reveals significant electricity price relief

As part of the budget presentation, the City of Cape Town also announced that the metro’s residents won’t be subject to Eskom’s 11% electricity price increase.

Instead, they will pay an average increase of 2%.

Hill-Lewis said the council plans to remove the 10% contribution to other service delivery embedded in the electricity unit price to achieve this.

The mayor said he was looking to lighten the load as residents are struggling with living costs in South Africa’s most expensive city.

In mid-March 2025, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approved an average standard tariff increase of 11.32% for municipal power utilities.

The regulator cut Eskom down to size with the adjustment it approved, considering the state-owned power utility had applied for a 43.55% price hike in 2025/26.

The energy watchdog said it approved the adjustment in an 11 March meeting, during which it considered and approved the Eskom Retail Tariffs and Structural Adjustment (ERTSA) application.

While municipal power customers will be hit by an 11.32% increase from 1 July 2025, Eskom direct customers will see tariffs increase by 12.74% on 1 April.