The Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria has reached an agreement with the leadership of various taxi associations in Tshwane to convert a portion of the mall’s parking area into a holding centre for minibus taxis.
The new facility will offer additional parking bays for approximately 135 taxis primarily for the Menlyn Taxi Association and Mamelodi Amalgamated Taxi Association.
This follows years of mayhem where taxis informally converted the roads outside the mall into makeshift ranks, flooding the streets with traffic, pedestrians, and even food stalls due to a lack of dedicated public transport facilities in the busy commercial district.
“For decades, public transport operations around Menlyn Park Shopping Centre have been characterised by chaos that has become an eyesore to the community in the area,” said Gauteng MMC for Roads and Transport, Katlego Mathebe, who assisted in facilitating the newfound partnership.
“Following the signing of the agreement, the centre management will now commence with essential construction work to ensure that the parking bays to be used for holding purposes are fit for purpose, so that they can accommodate a mixed fleet of taxi vehicles.”
The new taxi rank is expected to be completed early next year with the official handover ceremony envisaged for April 2024.
Addressing a major headache
The new taxi rank addresses a major headache for taxi operators, who often complain that when construction projects are erected there is little to no provision made for taxis.
According to CEO of The Justice Fund, Lorenzo Davids, when new infrastructure is built where taxis will undoubtedly have to travel to in order to pick up and drop off commuters, they are not involved in the discussions and are rarely if ever accommodated when the plans are being finalised, leaving them to make their own arrangements once the developments are complete.
This is despite taxis being an invaluable part of the economy as they are responsible for transporting in excess of 3.7 million workers each day over a total of 10 million trips.
As such, informal roadside taxi ranks in popular business and shopping areas have become a common sight in many South African cities.
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