On a clear day, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis can observe nearly every inch of the city bowl.
Gesturing near the windows of his sixth-floor office at a 160-year-old behemoth in the foreground, he says: “Just look at it. This is the perfect vantage point to see the size and scale of this property.”
The mayor is referring to Cape Town’s main railway station, which stretches over 500m from end to end. Most see it as a barely tolerable eyesore. Hill-Lewis — who campaigned for his position on transit equity and revitalising the city’s rail network — believes it’s a diamond in the rough: South Africa’s own Grand Central Terminal, so to speak.
By the end of the year, Eris Property Group’s “Cape Station” development might give Capetonians a sense of what’s to come.
The company has leased the station forecourt from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), and has been constructing a 20-storey mixed-use development practically on top of the pandemic-battered train terminal. Set to welcome its first tenants early next year, the 2.4ha site will house 3,085 National Student Financial Aid Scheme beds designated exclusively for students.
Last year, Eris development manager Henri de Wet told magazine Cape Town Etc of the site’s potential for transit-orientated development (TOD) in the CBD. He had reason to be hopeful: the transport ministry had just issued a white paper calling for a rail renaissance in South Africa. Only that has yet to materialise and, to cynics, Cape Town station’s potential for TOD is ironic — it’s a huge structure towering over a station where trains can’t be counted on to go anywhere, built for people who likely wouldn’t take them in the first place, given a huge drop in train ridership.
For Hill-Lewis, though, it’s not irony but a “tragedy”. He says: “We have this incredible infrastructure that’s not used.”
At its operational peak, Metrorail Western Cape covered a sprawling network of 122 stations offering regular transport reaching as far as Stellenbosch. But over the past decade Prasa’s woes have led to less reliable service, and lockdown-era looting hobbled Metrorail’s infrastructure.
Nationally, there were 46-million fewer trips on Metrorail systems in June 2023 than 10 years earlier. In the Western Cape, service has been restored to most of the network, but trains have yet to reach critical areas such as Khayelitsha and Somerset West — a reality that was felt acutely during the August taxi strikes.
Still, even though Prasa’s flashy new fleet of trains — complete with airconditioning and security cameras — is gradually replacing the ageing yellow clunkers commuters have been used to, Capetonians are reluctant to hop on board.
“Ridership is so low not because people don’t want to use the trains,” Hill-Lewis says. “It’s because they can’t do so. If there’s only one train an hour and people don’t fully trust that train to be there, they just can’t use the service. It’s not a viable, actual service. So you’re not going to address that ridership problem until you address reliability.”
As Metrorail Western Cape is administered by Prasa, rail service is largely out of the city’s control. But Hill-Lewis is keen to prime the city for a devolved train service when it comes — and, he says, it will come.
That’s the reality of the ideological politics inside the ANC. It’s deeply emotionally upsetting to have to let go of these enormous but failing state entities
— Geordin Hill-Lewis
But it’s about more than just rail.
“When you go [along] the rail corridor itself in most parts of South Africa, you have these huge 50m-100m rail reserves on each side of the line,” Hill-Lewis explains. “This is a crazy idea. Of course those should be built up; those should be the most valuable properties. The reserves are just vacant land at the moment.”
Hill-Lewis has been working with Prasa to rezone land surrounding train stations to build much needed housing. In theory, he says, “we can start quite simplistically. Draw a 500m or 1km circle around the stations, and pile in there. Maximise density right around those stations.”
He points to a social housing project adjacent to the Goodwood Metrorail station as evidence of his strategy at work.
Like many Metrorail stations, Goodwood had large parking facilities meant to accommodate commuters, who would leave their cars there and take a train to the city. Resident ward councillor Cecile Janse van Rensburg used to do just that. But, she tells the FM, as ridership fell so significantly, the vacant parking lots became “grimy, crimey kinds of spaces”.
In collaboration with Prasa, 1,055 social housing units have been built on the rail reserves adjacent to the station, with space earmarked for future retail outlets. The first tenants are set to move in next month.
Still, there has been pushback — not least from people concerned about their property values. It’s the result of a misconception, says Janse van Rensburg; residents are confusing social housing (government subsidised rentals for households earning R1,850-R22,000 a month) with low-cost and free RDP housing.
“So people are uninformed, and we educate them as we go; because, in fact, the way social housing is managed should add to the property values of the surrounding area.
“[My pitch] right in the beginning was: ‘Look at what it is now. Can it get worse? Can it really get worse?’”
According to Hill-Lewis, the Goodwood project is subsidised by a state grant, “and that’s a great model. We love that model ... You can do more of that. But you won’t be able to do that everywhere. The grants are not big enough.”
While social housing won’t be practicable on every rail reserve, Hill-Lewis thinks the location of some stations will draw in more affordable housing and that he won’t have to force the market to open up to other options.
Eris’s De Wet says his company would “put up our hand” if Hill-Lewis were able to unlock more of that land. “We’re keen to lend our expertise.”
The housing crisis and the public transport crisis happen to be the very same thing
— Geordin Hill-Lewis
Still, housing advocate Karen Hendricks, who supports the mayor’s TOD initiative, raises the problem of gentrification. As leader of the Woodstock chapter of Reclaim the City, Hendricks worries that lower-income Capetonians will continue to be pushed towards the city’s outskirts, which conversely underscores the need for effective public transportation.
Recalling the August taxi strikes’ effect on women and children, Hendricks emphasises that, to her, “the housing crisis and the public transport crisis happen to be the very same thing”.
#UniteBehind director Zackie Achmat put forward that argument — that Prasa has violated the rights of South Africa’s working-class — in the court papers his organisation filed on October 5. #UniteBehind is suing Prasa, the transport minister and the City of Cape Town to prompt a service-level agreement (SLA) that would help devolve Metrorail services.
“It’s the happiest I’ve been to be sued,” says Hill-Lewis. “We will certainly file papers to support that action. Because if we can get an SLA with clear written accountability as to the frequency of trains, reliability and [the permissible degree] of lateness, we can actually start to hold them accountable to that.”
To an extent, Hill-Lewis adds, Prasa and the ANC see it that way, too.
“It’s the same with SAA. A minister described it to me in these words: ‘We know exactly what needs to happen. But it’s very emotional for us to admit it’. And I think that’s the reality of the ideological politics inside the ANC. It’s deeply upsetting to have to let go of these enormous but failing state entities. So it takes them time to come to terms with reality. But you can’t hide from it.”
Before an SLA or devolution comes to fruition, Hill-Lewis says the Cape Station development will prove that his Grand Central ambitions are possible. De Wet explains that it won’t be just a matter of students engaging with the project; the street level will offer “dwelling spaces” seamlessly integrating the station with retail outlets and restaurants. Artistic renderings project grand open-air plazas similar to those at The Towers development just one block away.
The mayor concedes that the Cape Town CBD won’t turn into Midtown Manhattan overnight, but he recalls an event during his jet-lagged stupor to communicate his vision.
“I was privileged to stay, at one stage, just across the road from Grand Central,” Hill-Lewis says. “I couldn’t sleep ... I got up and went across the road to a Dunkin’ Donuts, and, at 4.30am, it was pumping.”
He believes Cape Town’s train station should be the “pumping heartbeat of the city, with crowds of people at all hours”. He also wants to see a variety of dense retail and residential spaces “so you start to build up a heart of the city.
“If you were to ask where the heart of Cape Town is, it would be hard to identify. This should be it. But it isn’t at the moment.”
Noting how difficult it can be to navigate the city as it is, Hill-Lewis points to projections that put Cape Town’s population at more than 10-million residents in coming decades. For his administration, the time to advocate for better transit and TOD is now. He says he has told Prasa’s CEO: “You need to replicate [Cape Station] 20 times over.”
The transport department hadn’t responded to the FM at the time of going to press.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.