AA CEO says the expropriation of land, with compensation, for Gautrain expansions will negatively impact Gauteng residents

mylesillidge

mylesillidge

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Gautrain land expropriation plans slammed

The expropriation of land, with compensation, to make way for planned new Gautrain stations and rail routes will only negatively impact residents of Gauteng, with little to show for it.

This is according to Bobby Ramagwede, CEO of the Automobile Association of South Africa, who said his organisation is vehemently opposed to the rail provider's planned expansion.
 
Conflict of interest?

Anyway eminent domain is a thing in pretty much all countries and it is the only way to get big infrastructure projects done.
 
Why don't they just go underground like so many other cities around the world? The other benefit to this would be that they could round up all the zama-zama's that shouldn't be there whilst doing it.
 
The argument for a new home is odd if it's with compensation as that would be the value of the home on the market.

Arguing that the price is too high for now is not really a valid argument as the price can come down.

This is a conflict of interest issue, it's good that the gautrain expands.
 
ghaye said:
Why don't they just go underground like so many other cities around the world? The other benefit to this would be that they could round up all the zama-zama's that shouldn't be there whilst doing it.
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Because it is very, very expensive, and you need the area to be very dense to justify it. Once you have suburbia, definitely not financially sustainable.

This is before you take into account that Johannesburg has a very large number of tunnels / mine shafts / unstable ground.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Because it is very, very expensive, and you need the area to be very dense to justify it. Once you have suburbia, definitely not financially sustainable.

This is before you take into account that Johannesburg has a very large number of tunnels / mine shafts / unstable ground.
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It was a tongue-in-cheek comment. But if density is a requirement, there should be a number of tunnels under parliament already.
 
ghaye said:
Why don't they just go underground like so many other cities around the world? The other benefit to this would be that they could round up all the zama-zama's that shouldn't be there whilst doing it.
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The SAHRC might object to the cow catchers.

Then again equally, we might soon read: "hijacked train found carting gold rich sands for zamma zammas"
 
Only one thing - the state buying land is "expropriation of land with compensation".
ghaye said:
Why don't they just go underground like so many other cities around the world? The other benefit to this would be that they could round up all the zama-zama's that shouldn't be there whilst doing it.
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Pretty much what was mentioned above. Going overground (viaduct) costs 10x more than normal rail. Going underground (tunnels) costs 100x more than normal rail. And dolerite is exceptionally hard to tunnel (as was observed in the Rosebank - JHB tunnel)
 
I think many are automatically reading this as "without compensation" because that's been in the headlines lately. No this is buying up land at value, same thing that happened back in the early 2000s when the Gautrain first came into play. I'm not sure why the hoo-hah about it now.
 
I really wonder about people who use Gautrain. E.g, how far is their home & office from nearest station ?

There was a time when both home & office was 4-5km away from nearest station and even then I didn't take it except to experiment once or twice. Total commute per day was at least 30 minutes more even if actual train time was less.

Of course, I could leave home between 6-6.15am and leave office at 3pm so commute per day was under 1 hour.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
I really wonder about people who use Gautrain. E.g, how far is their home & office from nearest station ?

There was a time when both home & office was 4-5km away from nearest station and even then I didn't take it except to experiment once or twice. Total commute per day was at least 30 minutes more even if actual train time was less.

Of course, I could leave home between 6-6.15am and leave office at 3pm so commute per day was under 1 hour.
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I've only used it on the airport to Sandton route, which is very useful.

If it eventually does make its way out to Lanseria too, that would probably also be used quite a bit.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
I really wonder about people who use Gautrain. E.g, how far is their home & office from nearest station ?

There was a time when both home & office was 4-5km away from nearest station and even then I didn't take it except to experiment once or twice. Total commute per day was at least 30 minutes more even if actual train time was less.

Of course, I could leave home between 6-6.15am and leave office at 3pm so commute per day was under 1 hour.
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If you don't have your own transport it makes more sense. I used to take the Gautrain from Midrand to Centurion weekly and it worked out similar to the fuel costs but without the maintenance you'd have to spend on your own vehicle. This was back in 2016 so maybe the landscape has changed.
 
AnimateX said:
If you don't have your own transport it makes more sense. I used to take the Gautrain from Midrand to Centurion weekly and it worked out similar to the fuel costs but without the maintenance you'd have to spend on your own vehicle. This was back in 2016 so maybe the landscape has changed.
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Why didn't you use prasa?
 
Sideshow Bob said:
I really wonder about people who use Gautrain. E.g, how far is their home & office from nearest station ?

There was a time when both home & office was 4-5km away from nearest station and even then I didn't take it except to experiment once or twice. Total commute per day was at least 30 minutes more even if actual train time was less.

Of course, I could leave home between 6-6.15am and leave office at 3pm so commute per day was under 1 hour.
Click to expand...
I used to take the Gautrain from Kempton to Sandton for a few months. The Kempton station was about 10km away from my house and I was working in Sandton towers so it took 5 minutes to walk there.

With Sandton traffic between 6-9 and 4-6 I would have been on the road for at least 2 hours. With the Gautrain I was on the road for about 30 minutes a day.
 
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