adminbeen festering for years, ever since the collapse of Zupco.
These little buses are stacked up around Harare’s central business district, especially the western areas, for most of the day blocking many streets; during the morning and evening rush hours they stop just about anywhere and cause a danger to other road users.
Obviously something has to be done. But we think the council and the police must seek permanent solutions, not just launch occasional blitzes that do nothing except create hardship for those who use the kombis and, as each blitz eases off, returns the city centre to chaos once again.
There must be proper bus stops, clearly marked, where kombis can drop people off and pick people up although not park. There must be adequate terminus space, supplemented by terminus supervisors and
auxiliary holding car parks outside the city centre if necessary.
We need to remember that the main reason why there is a kombi problem is that the majority of people who work or visit the city centre use these services; all solutions should be designed with the two goals of making life easier for the passengers, and allowing traffic to flow better.
Car drivers need to remember that if everyone entering the city centre used private cars the traffic jams would be far worse than they are with most using public transport.
Traffic experts should be able to design a public transport system that relies on a vast fleet of individually-owned minibuses.
It will be more complex than a system built around a monopoly bus operator but should not be impossible. The temporary arrangement of kombis is not going to end soon so let us organise it properly.
We would like to see the council, the police and representatives of the kombi owners work out a plan. This must include properly marked bus stopped, properly marked routes, and enough off street parking.
We have said before that because the terminuses are too small we almost certainly need holding areas outside the city centre where most drivers can park outside rush hours but who can be called in when the number of buses in the terminuses falls below set levels.
A small fee, possibly as low as US$1 an entry, would pay for the small number of rank marshals required. All such marshals must be council employees.
Zupco used this system when it ran the services, having marshals at terminuses who could call in buses from Belvedere when required.
With such a plan of proper bus stops and terminus management in place, and the council and police could unilaterally implement such a plan if kombi owners refuse to agree, then that plan must be enforced, rigorously and continuously, rather than by occasional blitzes.
Trying to bring order to the streets where there is no underlying order is no permanent solution.
The council has brought order to parking, so dealing with a lot of people who do not care what others think when they block roads is not impossible. It must be remembered that streets could only be kept clear once parking was managed in a system.
We believe that a clear policy, enforced after being made, will satisfy the two desired criteria: good services for passengers and open roads for other users.
The problem of vendors needs some sensitivity. We agree that blocked pavements are not desirable, but people should be allowed to earn a living. In the 1980s the idea of “peoples markets” made some progress, but was badly planned and badly organised.
A degree of flexibility when it comes to licencing flea markets seems the best way forward. Avondale shows that informal traders and formal traders can co-exist to mutual advantage, the combination attracting more customers to that shopping centre than each could attract on its own. Even the top-market Borrowdale finds a weekly market useful.
The Avondale system ensures that informal and formal markets are kept separate but both convenient for shoppers using a single parking bay, and that seems to be the model the city centre could follow.
Informal markets need to have everything from a small table for the starter trader, to a modest booth. The next stage would obviously be renting a shop.
But we need to remember that hundreds of people earn a survival income through vending, providing services city centre users appreciate, and colonial solutions using the Vagrancy Act are not the best way of clearing pavements.
As with kombis, a proper plan to allow legitimate business while keeping roads and pavements clear is required before the blitzes.
Cities are there for the people who use them, and people need public transport and informal traders; the plan must be to manage, not to ban.
Online Reporter