Rea Vaya

I am a big fan of mass transportation in cities. As much as I love to drive the open road in the country, I prefer to traverse the city underground on a subway or metro or above ground in a tram, trolley or bus. Cheaper, safer, harder to get lost in and in the case of the above ground options, you can relax and take in the sights as you travel.

Johannesburg is limited in its mass transportation options. The high-speed Gautrain comes from Pretoria or the airport, goes through Sandton and Rosebank and ends at Park station in the CBD. After that, it’s the bus. The Rea Vaya to be exact. One of the highlight of my recent Fashion District / Little Addis walking tour was the opportunity to try out the Rea Vaya with a trained professional, our JoburgPlaces tour guide Gerald Garner.

a Rea Vaya station

The Rea Vaya is Joburg's answer to a more extensive city wide mass transportation. After an exhaustive search of the transportation solutions of other large cities- NY, London, etc. - the planners finally settled on the bus system they saw used in Bogota and Pereira, Colombia. Rea Vaya means "we are going" in scamto. (Spoken usually only by the youth, scamto comprises a mix of many languages including Afrikaans, Sotho, Zulu, English and Xhosa.)

I needn't have been concerned about figuring out the Rea Vaya system; it is fairly simple actually. There are currently only a handful of routes so it is very hard to get lost. There is the T1, T2, T3, the C1, C2, the circular C3 route through the inner city, the C4 and C5. Then there are the feeder routes from the local neighborhoods.The future looks bright for the Rea Vaya too as there are many more routes planned.

You use a special plastic smartcard just like the Gautrain which you load up at the ATM or station to buy your rides and just like the Gautrain, you press the card face down onto the security screen to open the gate in and the gate out of the covered waiting area. The Rea Vaya drives through town on special “bus only” lanes so even during rush hour, you are assured of a quick ride.

Bottom line, will I be taking the Rea Vaya again? How do you say "absolutely" in scamto?