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The adoption of BRT in South Africa reflects the historical spatial planning of apartheid (Christopher 1995; Parnell 1997; Parnell and Mabin 1995; Robinson 1996, 1997) and the challenges facing post-apartheid policies to remedy these dysfunctional schemes (Haferburg and Huchzermeyer 2014; Harrison et al. 2008, 2014; Parnell and Pieterse 2014). South African cities were shaped primarily by policies of strict racial segregation but also rigorous separation of economic and residential zones, which denied Black residents full access to the city and its economic base (Davies 1981; Home 1990; Lemon 1991; Western 1985); and had the secondary objective of increasing travel times considerably for non-White residents (Pirie 2013, 2014). Apartheid settlement strategies located townships on the periphery of cities and heavily subsidized public transportation to enable workers to travel long distances at low fares (Beall et al. 2002; Turok and Watson 2001). Under the old regime, only those with passes were permitted to travel between the townships and the city, and thus movement was generally only permitted on weekdays between home and work. Because of the inheritance of these restrictions, to this day there is effectively no pattern of non-work travel between the suburban areas and the city center. The introduction of BRT is an attempt to unsettle these socio-spatial settlement patterns.

Today, South African cities are characterized by contrasts and dualisms: high-rise residential towers turned slums; Victorian houses surrounded by privatized greenery; endless stretches of banal suburban development punctured by low-cost government-sponsored housing; European cafés and upmarket shops with hawkers selling homemade wares and promising to guard the luxury cars. The one commonality across the fragmented post-apartheid landscape is the proliferation of the automobile – its presence dominates the physical landscape of the city as well as the cultural milieu. Obviously, the South African city is not unique in this feature, but the degree to which apartheid’s forced segregation stretched the city amplifies this condition. Although this understanding of the spatial character of the South African city as uneven is generally applied ubiquitously, there are profound differences across South African cities reflecting their distinctive topography and resulting settlement patterns, as well as their sociocultural composition, economic vitality and historic planning and contemporary governance. My assessment of the spatial form and associated mobility dynamics sheds light on the complex and challenging advancement of inclusive South African cities.

South African history is riddled with transportation experiments: horse-drawn streetcars were introduced in the 1890s, electric trams operated until the Second World War and trolleybuses ran in the high-apartheid period until Johannesburg, the last city to do so, terminated services in 1986. There are a number of detailed empirical accounts of the trams and trolleybus systems in Cape Town (Gill 1961; Joyce 1981), eThekwini (Jackson 2003), Johannesburg (Sey 2012; Spit and Patton 1976) and Nelson Mandela Bay (Shields 1979), as well as analyses of the development of the road system (e.g. Rosen 1962 in Johannesburg) and the emergence of the minibus taxi industry (Khosa 1991, 1995; McCaul 1990). Because South African city form and function makes it difficult to support a sunken subway – Johannesburg is built atop a maze of underground gold mining shafts and Cape Town rests largely on marsh and infill – transportation officials and engineers have struggled to modernize the commuter rail and municipal bus services. The commuter rail network is poorly maintained and its fixed lines prove inadequate in the expanding metropolises. Bus systems are similarly struggling to service the low-density urban form. The modernist aspiration of car ownership and its associations with independence and wealth is reinforced in practical terms through the dispersed city form, which separates people from economic and social opportunities.

For the most part, the urban populace relies on a politically powerful and largely under-regulated fleet of overcrowded, poorly maintained minibus taxis that operate irregular services. The minibus taxi industry has captured the majority of market share against subsidized modes, carrying about 60 percent of trips, nationally. The industry emerged in the 1980s in reaction to the failures of government to supply adequate bus and train services to the townships (Khosa 1991, 1995; McCaul 1990). In the sprawling landscape of contemporary urban South Africa, the minibus taxi is generally preferred to government-sponsored bus and rail services because it is considered more convenient in terms of routing and frequency (Clark and Crous 2002). While there are certainly arguments in support of the minibus taxi industry with proponents describing it as a self-made, Black entrepreneurial venture, in general commuters are dissatisfied with the slow, capricious quality of the informal services (Salazar Ferro et al. 2013). The South African policymakers I interviewed described an almost doomsday scenario filled with uncertainty, labeling it a “commuter crisis” akin to the global financial crisis and calling for fundamental reform to the transportation network.¹

As a result of these features, transportation planning has been understood as central to the transformation of South African cities. Transportation has historically been used to divide the spatial layout of cities. Planned roads have been used to separate planning typologies in both planned and unplanned settlements, and transportation systems have been used to control who can access the city and how they move. In South Africa, planners have been especially focused on building modernist highways to accommodate the White elite who could afford to drive. The fact that transportation is experienced by a range of people across incomes and experiences, means that it also serves as an arena for social mixing and these interactions have unbridled opportunities for change. Policymakers in South Africa have been attuned to these openings, and efforts to remedy the inequality of transportation have been at the forefront of urban planning and policymaking since 1994. Transportation has also been, and continues to be, a site of resistance. The success of the 1957 Alexandra bus boycotts in Johannesburg was a pivotal moment in the anti-apartheid movement; and in the post-apartheid era, transportation continues to be a point of contention in service delivery protests.

This book aims to explain how South African policymakers are trying to improve urban transportation, specifically addressing the process by which best practice is drawn from elsewhere to inform local planning and policy change. In South Africa, BRT is seen as the solution that simultaneously provides transportation users with an affordable, reliable and safe transportation system, taxi operators with formalized and stable employment, and buses and rail operators with viable routes. Its larger purpose is to address the severe historical spatial divide along racial lines and post-apartheid splintered urbanism. The operational systems conjure up images of equality and dignity for all South Africans, moving freely and efficiently through urban space regardless of skin color or income, in a city free from the grip of informality, and instead managed by an efficient and capable municipal government. In this post-apartheid moment, transportation may be South Africa’s best tool through which to bridge the divided city.