Young Urbanists South Africa

This sunny Sunday, join us for our weekly Bree Street as we transform it into a vibrant, car-free public space filled with exciting, non-commerical activities for all ages. From 10 to 5, experience a new way to enjoy the heart of town with live music from local buskers, street games like tennis to cricket, and a cycling clinic hosted by our friends Mzikhona Mgedle from Langa Bicycle Hub. Skate enthusiasts can enjoy a dedicated skate zone with Queer Skate near Clarke's bar and dining room while art lovers can explore "Skillboratory" by Maya Bogaer —a unique public art installation inviting you to connect and exchange skills with others. For those who love a challenge, there will be chess games set up as well on Shortmarket St near Rosetta Roastery. Plus, some of your favorite hospitality spots will be open throughout the day, adding to the lively atmosphere. Every week, we’ll add more activities to keep things fresh. Come by and be part of this reclaimed space in the city! A big thanks to the City of Cape Town officials, Ian McMahon, Roberto Miquel Quintas (Mayco Member for Urban Mobility) and Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis for the support. Another special thanks goes out Bradley Fisher and the rest of the Supplier Development Initiatives trustees part of the Safe Passage Programme Family for the MellowVans support vehicle and Craig Atkinson and the team Green Riders for the marshalling support. All of this confirmed during the The Earthshot Prize week where we as Young Urbanists South Africa, Safe Passage Programme with SDI, and Active Mobility Forum participated in the #Ride4Change by Green Riders. A key message for us is we hope our idea of street experiments can help decarbonise our climate and allow us as Africans to rethink how we see roads. #StreetExperiments #SaferStreets #SafePassage Ofentse Madisha Hannah Jones Rehana Moosajee Sekadi Phayane-Shakhane Pr. Eng Photography by Solly King 🦓🦓

Breaking news. David Green from the V&A Waterfront has reinstated the pedestrian crossing after it found its rationale to be flawed. “After the crossing was removed, traffic persisted and it didn’t get better. What did get worse was pedestrian access as we found the robot crossing to be a death trap”. We want to thank David Green for falling back on its original plans to make Dock Road a “pedestrian-friendly space” and refusing to succumb to a minority voice when the majority of users are pedestrians. What do you think? Please comment below. My colleague Sindile Mavundla added that the rules of induced demand are very clear and that we cannot build our way out of congestion. Even the V&A Waterfront's own plans call for alternative ways to transport people to and from the Waterfront and one way is through cycling and walking whilst rail comes back and MyCiTi gets better with phase 2A says us from the Active Mobility Forum. Another victory will be for the Waterfront to redesign its cycling lanes which are currently smaller than the width of a bicycle and has no protection from speeding cars says Mavundla, the current Bicycle Mayor of Cape Town. But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves as the reinstatement of the pedestrain crossing is a big change in culture from the once renowned organisation that was supposedly the leader when it comes to urban design, planning and transportation. Comment below what you think. And please don’t forget to tag the V&A Waterfront #aprilfoolsday #pedestriandeaths

LIVEABLE URBAN WATERWAYS | Sand and Langevlei Canals, Conistan Park - This project involves removing canals, and restoring the waterway and wetlands. It aims to: 1️⃣ rehabilitate the lower sections of the Sand and Langevlei canals as they converge by removing the concrete walls and base, and creating more natural-looking banks; 2️⃣ create a new wetland; 3️⃣ replace the litter traps; 4️⃣ remove problematic invasive alien plants and sediments, and replace with appropriate plants; and 5️⃣ improve footpaths, bridges, seating and signage. The community of Conistan Park were called together by the ward councillor to discuss some of their concerns relating to the project. More importantly to identify and agree to a way forward. I am grateful that the community, represented by those in attendance, were largely supportive and excited by this project which has gone through a lengthy co-design process.

Adopt smarter, more cost effective and sustainable ways of getting around this festive season. #UrbanMobilityCT #SmartTravel

The City of Cape Town has made a big U-turn around how they value, view and approach active mobility over the last few years. This is now nicely packaged in their latest strategies, which include key reforms in how they approach decision-making around road classifications, updates to their guidelines in the Stormwater and Roads Manual, the inclusion of induce demand, mandatory approaches to universal access design and much more. This would not have been possible without an active, collaborative and caring civil society, private and public sector. While there are many examples of this from the last few years to the last decade or so, some highlights this year are the weekly Bree and Shortmarket Street Experiments Africa to test a simple idea out at a low-cost to the Green Riders Ride4Change part of the The Earthshot Prize week that followed the Safe Passage Programme Lange route where we are (finally) kicking off phase 1.1 in earnest 2025 by upgrading the Bree St cycling lane between Young Urbanists South Africa with Urban Mobility and the Supplier Development Initiatives. With the deadline looming for the City's draft Universal Access Policy for an Accessible Transport System (today) and the new Cycling and Walking Strategy (tomorrow), I would urge anyone to allocate a small amount of time to make your comment. I really do not need to outline how significant this would be if any municipality, especially a metro, in our country's history were the first to prioritize vulnerable road users, pedestrians, scholars, yes, cyclists, and public transportation users over private cars. That would be justice—transportation justice. Universal Access: https://lnkd.in/d9vYjdQT Cycling & Walking Strategy: https://lnkd.in/dZbRNweP #SaferStreets #SafePassage Active Mobility Forum Photography by Solly King

Our volunteer-led community clean-ups having been keeping litter at bay in the Observatory section for 11 years now. This is such a great example of local people adopting their stretch of the River. Please support their fundraiser to keep on doing this every month for another year! Friendly sponsors have provided some fabulous thank you gifts for ticket-holders. You could be lucky! https://lnkd.in/d4SEfQvz

The draft Walking and Cycling Strategy is open for public comment. Find out more about the strategy and how it with benefit you and the City you live in. Don’t forget to submit your feedback on https://bit.ly/3Bdq1Yn comments close 14 December 2024. Khaltsha Cycles Pedal Power Association Young Urbanists South Africa Langa Bicycle Hub Bicycling Empowerment Network #WalkandCycleCT #UrbanMobilityCT

What if Bree St in Cape Town was permanently pedestrianised from Wale to Strand including Shortmarket St? This is the Street Experiments Africa we are conducting with the City of Cape Town to see how can we for the least little amount of cost and resources close down a street on a weekly basis. The ideas is to test what and does not work where the premise is the following: A. How can we unlock a new tool to test an idea out without breaking the bank and B. How can we create a high quality public road (space) to support our local community, empower vulnerable road users, reduce GHG emissions, stimulate local businesses and much more. Already we have seen: 1) A relatively spike in visitors to the area on a Sunday where children and adults are visiting their local favourites or just walking, cycling through with tourists lingering longer with their tour guides to take in the rich history of our complex, beautiful city. 2) Increase in sales - this is very NB, whilst we wait for the figures which we will share, businesses along the road have reported an increase in sales. Slowly more businesses are opening up on a Sunday to test it out - this will hopefully lead to more people being hired as a result. 3) More accessible spaces for children, vulnerable road users and the disabled who do not have to rely on non-complaint universal accessible sidewalks to get to their place of work or when going out for lunch. We are working hard to share the above with you and that is why we have elicited the help from Marco Morgan who is consulting with us to help with external facilitation, documenting of the experiment and helping us write a toolkit to share with others at the end of the experiment. Any ideas please comment below or email us at streetexperiments@youngurbanists.co.za. Or better yet, join us tomorrow (or every Sunday until March, '25) to experience and give us feedback. While we have you here, we have two exciting announcements to share soon! Street experiments shouldn't always be about fully closing down a street. Instead, they can be powerful tools for implementing small yet impactful interventions to test new road designs. Watch this space. #SaferStreets Active Mobility Forum Street Experiments Tool - SET

Please join us for the BAS2 Design Studio Exhibition, taking place on Saturday, 07 December 2024 from 11am onwards at the 16 on Lerotholi Gallery in Langa. Together with our collaborators, 16 on Lerotholi Gallery, we consider interweaving the practices of an art space, food garden, communal kitchen and housing, assembling these into ecosystems of inhabitation. The studio explores the development of contextually rich and appropriate mixed-use urban schemes, integrating urban agriculture, ritual practices of food offerings and co-inhabitation strategies in Langa, Cape Town. We invite you to join us in this public exhibition, in celebration of the exciting and meaningful work developed by our BAS2 students through the studio.

You've heard all this talk about Universal Access but still not sure what is it about? Watch as Councillor Rob Quintas explains what Universal Access Policy for an Accessible Transport System is. Give your input on the Draft UA Policy before 13 December 2024 by visiting the City’s Have Your Say page at https://bit.ly/3Bn52lM Western Cape Network on Disability Warrior On Wheels Foundation Justice Desk Africa Our Future Cities Lois Strachan Rachael Coxen Jessica Dewhurst #UniversalAccess #AccessibleTransport #UrbanMobilityCT