The Mercury
The eThekwini Municipality’s councillors will ride these donated bicycles to meetings to reduce Durban’s carbon footprint and fight global warming.
Durban – Not content with the 92 bicycles donated to the city of Durban after the COP17 climate change conference, the municipality now plans to buy more bikes, to the value of R100 000, so that councillors can pedal to work.
After an executive committee meeting this week, mayor James Nxumalo and city manager Sibusiso Sithole were among the first recipients of the bikes donated by the United National Industrial Development Organisation after the conference in 2011.
In a finance and procurement meeting on Thursday, however, it was said that additional bicycles would be bought so that more councillors would have a chance to ride.
DA councillor Tex Collins, who was in the meeting, said he did not visualise anyone from the DA using pedal power, as they all lived “too far away” from the city.
“We should not be spending money on bicycles, we must just allocate what we have,” said Collins.
“There may be initial enthusiasm, but how many councillors are going to continue to use them?”
Collins said he lived in Waterfall and cycling in work attire was unrealistic.
The idea is to decrease the city’s carbon footprint through reduced vehicle emissions.
“Are we really trying to solve global warming like this?” asked Collins.
Finance committee chairwoman Fawzia Peer said some councillors were excited about the initiative and generalisations could not be made as to who would, or would not, ride. She was concerned about how safe it would be to cycle in Durban. “It is not practical with the high volumes of traffic, and taxi drivers need to be educated to take cyclists into account,” said Peer.
The bicycles will be the property of the city and signed out to councillors who wish to use them.
A councillor, who asked not to be named, said the purchase of more bikes was “a waste of money”.
“They will be left in storage and never used. This money could be spent elsewhere.”
The owner of Cyclesphere, Greg Albert, said cycling around Durban was slowly increasing but needed to be worked on.
“The city is trying to increase the number of cycling paths, but we need to look at lock-up points.”
Once a rider reached his or her destination there were no secure areas for bikes to be stored, and securing them with a chain only would, more than likely, see them stolen, he said.
Albert said turning Durban into a cycle city was not something that would “happen overnight” and motorists needed to be educated about cycle lanes and cyclists’ rights.
Combined Ratepayers’ Association chairwoman Lilian Develing was less kind.
“What a joke. They have had these bicycles for months and they want to buy more?
“This is just another quirk to get their names in the paper. They will never use the bikes. Who lives near the city hall and can cycle to work?”
This is not the first time the city has been asked to splash out on little extras for councillors. In February, Nxumalo asked for Apple iPads for exco members as they were “more convenient” than laptops.
The city spent R1.9 million on laptops in 2005, which were purchased to keep councillors in step with technological advancements.
The idea of municipal staff riding bikes might seem laughable in Durban, but in cities in the Netherlands, and in China’s Beijing, it is normal practice.
As of 2010, 20 percent of Beijing’s 20 million residents rode bikes as transport, while 27 percent of all daily trips made in Holland were by bicycle.
And, in London, mayor Boris Johnson recently declared a mammoth investment in cycling infrastructure for the city, including special trails.
A public bicycle-sharing scheme in London rents out cycles dubbed “Boris Bikes” as the mayor was instrumental in their introduction.
The Mercury
