On the EcoMove

So the much-anticipated (or if you prefer, the much-dreaded) EcoMobility World Festival which was supposed to start on October 1 and was instead delayed until October 4th actually started - for the commuters anyway - on Monday, October 5. So now on Day Two, I am prepared to share a little of my observations on how it's going so far.

First of all, it is not a total EcoMageddon as I had feared. No mass hysteria. No panic in the streets. Of course, we are still in the middle of school holidays so perhaps that helps the commute a little. We will see when the school commute resumes.

I did drive Vince to the office yesterday and it was relatively traffic-free. We avoided the morning commute rush hour entirely by traveling at 10:00 am, but when I picked him up at 6:00, we traveled at the height of the evening commute. There was noticeably more traffic on Grayston Drive which is the boundary of the EcoMobility no-drive zone, but still it was manageable. I drove him again this morning during rush hour and once again, traffic was light.

I did notice more signage too whilst driving around Sandton City yesterday. (Around, not in.) Apparently the Mall at Sandton City is not only open during the Festival but they even provide a Rooftop Park & Ride. Good to know! I can still shop at Sandton City and Mandela Square during October and I can walk from Sandton City to the Gautrain if need be.

I decided to do more research on the Park & Ride situation to find out more about the alternative means of transportation that the city is providing. Information is "available" through a portal on the Moving Gauteng website. According to the website, "The purpose of this portal on Moving Gauteng is to provide detailed public transport info for people commuting into Sandton." It is not quite as accessible and detailed as they would like you to believe. I had a little trouble navigating the website to get the information I wanted.

So I dug a little further. They have a google map of the Park & Ride stations. That is helpful to know.














And bus route maps. This is the route Vince could take to avoid commuting by car and driver (me) completely. He could pick up the bus at the stop on Outspan and Ballyclare and be dropped off right in front of his office building on Grayston.

I tried to talk him into giving it a try if only for my blog's sake, but he would have none of it! Honestly, I cannot blame Vince for not wanting to be my EcoGuinea Pig.

photo by Mark Straw

That's okay. I found a blog post by Mark Straw of  Joburg Photowalkers fame. Mark did a little system test himself this past weekend. He parked at one of the Park & Ride lots and took a special EcoMobile bus to Sandton City for the big Festival Kick-off on Sunday.

photo by Mark Straw

After reading Mark's report, I am very happy that Vince's commute is not going to be affected by the EcoMobility Festival. We chose our apartment especially because of its easy commute to the Sandton CBD. Although as luck would happen, IBM moved their offices even closer to us from the original location on the corner of Rivonia and Sandton Drive to the corner of Grayston  Drive and West Street. And with IBM's serendipitous move to our side of the CBD, Vince's commute reduced dramatically. (There's that awesome Serendipity again!)

During rush hour, the old commute took  about 15 to 20 minutes - even longer if robots were not working or if there were construction delays. Now, it takes about five minutes! Seriously, Vince calls me on his cell just as he is about to set foot into the elevator to go down to the lobby and by the time the doors open and he steps out onto the ground floor, I am pulling up in front of the building! That's a short commute! So the idea of his standing in a long line of bus commuters in order to stop ten times along the way to let passengers on and off only to be dropped off a few blocks from the entrance to Valley Lodge and then having to walk the rest of the way home? Not an appealing compromise; I get it.

Besides I feel we are already compromising by only having only one car in a two-car garage and doing the driver (me) commute thing anyway. We are already EcoMobile at Valley Lodge!