EcoMobility is a moral issue

07 October 2015

 

African cities had no choice but to change the way they moved people while saving the environment and protecting people’s health by reducing carbon emissions, the City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Transport, Cllr Christine Walters, said on Tuesday October 6 – the second day of the 2015 EcoMobility World Festival.

 

MMC Walters was speaking in Sandton during a discussion titled “Reshaping Cities for EcoMobility: Strategies and Tactics”, chaired by Professor Philip Harris of Wits University and moderated by Adrian Enthoven, chairman of Hollard.

 

“The EcoMobility issue is now a moral issue. It goes to the heart of individual choices. It’s about saving the planet. It’s about brave mayors (such as Johannesburg Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau) showing bold leadership and making difficult [political] decisions,” the MMC said.

 

She said the 2015 EcoMobility World Festival’s slogan, “Change the Way You Move”, was part of that paradigm shift.

 

“This is a global conversation. In South Africa we are redesigning’s apartheid spatial development, bringing people on board. We are using transport as the backbone of Mayor Tau’s Corridors of Freedom programme,” she said.

 

The city has already spent billions of rands on bus rapid transit (BRT) system projects, cycle lanes and pedestrian walkways. Millions more will be spent on similar projects over the next three years.

 

“My hope is that people will buy into the Mayor’s vision,” MMC Walters said.

 

The discussions – on the challenges African cities are grappling with in their quest to incorporate ecomobility into their urban planning and development strategies – were led by experts from South Africa, Uganda, Brazil, Britain and the United States.

 

Yolande Silimela, the City of Johannesburg’s Executive Director of Development Planning, said Johannesburg was in a “perfect storm” because there was political will, resources and civil society backing of ecomobility projects.

 

Amanda Ngabirano Aziidah, of Makerere University in Uganda, said though it was important to learn from European and American cities, it was time cities on the continent used African benchmarks for ecomobility projects.