Editorial Comment: Council’s efforts in sorting out transport system welcome

terminus, has never been clogged with kombis. Anyone working in that half of the city centre, and wanting to catch a bus to an eastern, north eastern or south eastern suburb, has simply strolled down to that terminus, found the correctly marked platform and hopped aboard the bus at the front of the queue.
The western half of the city centre has been a nightmare. There is no large terminus: Market Square, Chinhoyi  Street (Copacabana) and Charge Office all being far too small with the much heavier demand for western routes to allow any, but a small minority of buses to be parked there. The result has been the occupation of many streets in that area as the terminuses expand everywhere.
The council is now implementing plans many, including this newspaper, have pushed for years. Western kombis will be corralled in a new holding kombi park along Coventry Road near the Kopje. City marshals, on the municipal pay roll, will man that holding centre and the small terminuses in the west. Kombis will be called in as there is space in these small terminuses and will be given 10 minutes to load their passengers and then go.
The southern routes will be serviced from Rezende Street terminus, which is very central, and presumably the kombis for those routes will be corralled in Coventry Road as well.
For the commuter there should be no change. Most will catch their buses where they usually catch them, or at the nearest terminus to where they usually catch them. We presume that the eastern buses will still be allowed to go as far as Copacabana to drop off and pick up passengers, but will not be allowed to linger there.
Kombi drivers will not lose. They will still carry the same passengers on the same route, the amount of fuel used in going to and from the holding terminus empty being trivial. The one group that will lose out are the touts who have been organising the terminuses and the unofficial ranks. They will go. The city council intends collecting fees to pay for the new system and hire the marshals, but we guess these will be roughly what the touts charged.
Kombis are not being banned from the city centre; that was tried and did not work. The only ones who suffered were the commuters. But what the new system does do is ban kombis parking in the city centre, taking over street after street in the western half.
As we have noted, the system that works in the east is being upgraded and applied right across the city centre, freeing vast areas of parking and ensuring that the unfortunate businesses who have suffered so much by having kombis parked on their door step will now enjoy a normal street. The northern routes might still be a problem. Kombis tend to load along Leopold Takawira and Sam Nujoma Streets just north of the central business district. And they cause a mess. Police and drivers have been playing cat and mouse at these “ranks” for months.
The ideal would be to devote a part of the Rezende Street terminus to northern routes, if there is enough room after the southern routes are sorted out. Some clever road planning will be needed to allow kombis to move from Rezende Street to turn right into one-way Nelson Mandela Avenue and then almost immediately left into, presumably, Julius Nyerere Way since Takawira Street is on the wrong side and Nujoma Street runs the wrong way. But this should not be insurmountable. A bus arrow on new traffic lights would give convenience and safety.
Proper bus stops will be needed along many routes, but we used to have these in the Zupco days and there is no reason why they cannot be restored. The idea of bus lanes is also useful. The advent of more one-way streets in the western part of the city centre gives an ideal opportunity to mark these from the beginning.
These thoughts on the northern routes show that no system can be perfect and that we can expect teething problems. During the three months notice the city council has given kombis we hope many can be sorted out, preferably with actual tests in non-peak periods so that the new marshals start learning just how long it will take a bus to arrive at a terminus. The marshals can and must be trained, but the first batch will also have to learn on the job being ready to adapt as they work out optimum solutions.
We hope the council has discussed these plans with the police traffic section. They will work well only so long as the new rules and systems are enforced, and that means the police will have to be active.
Kombi drivers can be fined into submission, and while we all hope most will see the benefits to all, including themselves, of the new system a minority will have to learn that cheating is forbidden. And once some can cheat all will want to, as they cannot lose business. So fairness and acceptability demands strict enforcement.