R60m express still on hold
Although the Express train plans are still on hold, Prasa announced that Durban’s train stations are set to get a facelift.
|||Durban - Durban’s train stations are set to get a facelift. The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa) plans emerged on Tuesday during a visit by the KwaZulu-Natal Transport Portfolio Committee to Durban and KwaMnyandu stations.
Work on Durban Station could take between five and 10 years to complete.
Parking and warehousing areas at the station have already been upgraded in the past year-and-a-half.
The upgrades were prompted by demand from tenants who wanted more space to operate.
There are plans to make the station more retail focused with fewer Prasa offices in the building.
MPLs visited KwaMnyandu Station in uMlazi to check on how the work was progressing
They were briefed on plans to improve a tunnel which links the station with KwaMnyandu Shopping Centre.
The committee also listened to complaints from the public about passenger trains.
Commuter Fisani Mafu said passengers had to wait hours for the train.
Mafu, 35, said: “Cleanliness on the train is also a problem. On Friday drunken louts will urinate in the train. Come Monday morning the smell of urine is still in the train.”
In a Prasa presentation, a plan to revamp the Isipingo Station was also announced.
Authorities have yet to announce when work would begin. The work is at the procurement stage, which can take six months.
It was expected to take two years to modernise it. The completed project will have an area of 12 000m², a retail area and a parking lot.
The committee made the journey from Durban to KwaMnyandu stations aboard the new business express train, intended to run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.
The Daily News reported in July that the trains were initially proposed in 2009 as a way for government employees and businessmen to travel between the cities. It was hoped it would ease congestion on the N3.
Six years and R60 million later the service has yet to come into operation.
In July, Metrorail’s KZN regional spokesman, Zama Nomnganga, said issues with infrastructure such as platform problems in Pietermaritzburg, were being fixed.
On Tuesday, Metrorail Regional head, Dumi Dube, said contractors were on site rectifying the problem.
He said part of the platform at Thornwood had collapsed and was under Transnet’s jurisdiction. “They have their own timelines,” he said.
Dube said the train was expected to run early next year.
Chairman of the committee, Mxolisi Kaunda, said although Prasa was a national entity and did not report to provincial authorities, they had an interest in it because it related to service delivery.
Kaunda said they were happy with the work being done in the revamping of the stations.
Each of the business express trains can accommodate about 300 people.
Dalton Ndongeni, a spokesman for non-governmental organisation, Public Transport Voice, said: “Government should fix trains that ordinary people use rather than get trains for the rich.”
Ndongeni said it was not the rich who made the economy work but ordinary people.
He said they had raised issues around Prasa’s expenditures for a long time, but to no avail.
Daily News