Got to love the Gautrain.

Walked out of the office,  into the station,  entered the train, disembarked at Sandton, climbed aboard another and 15 minutes later disembarked at OR Tambo.

Walked down the escalator,  into the Intercontinental hotel,  had a meeting.

Now if every day was as easy as that in Gauteng,  business would be booming.

There are those who complain about the price.  The train from the airport was full at 11.45am.  I haven’t experienced the late afternoon yet.   But it got me wondering to how this had affected traffic flow to the airport, not to mention parking.  During the last visit I noted that the top two floors of the parking garage were pretty empty, whereas this time last year there was hardly a place for a Harley.

So here are a few observations and stark realities for the toll-gate fraternity.

The Park station line needs to be completed quickly, then the line to Soweto.

The M1 to Soweto is so clogged during rush hour that many middle class Sowetans will leap on board the Gautrain as soon as its available and revolutionize the daily commute.

Because the volume of users will rocket,  the cost will drop and the number of trains will increase.  Therefore the number of cars using the hapless Toll routes will drop.  And Sanral will get a finger in its eye.

Great.

Petrol price up to R10 a litre?  That reminds me.  Time to dust off my motorbike.  Hold on.  Why not rent a horse?  I’ve been flirting with this concept for a while now.    Problem is the horse tends to make a mess.   Still,  peering down at SUV drivers below would be fun.  Just got to warn the Audi convertible behind that the exhaust gases from the equis tend to come with solids.

What about public transport?  In Johannesburg that amounts to taking death cabs called minibus taxis.  The public buses are now staffed by wannabee ferrari drivers and the Gautrain doesn’t fully extend around the city.

I kind of miss the electric trams that used to run through the main roads of Johannesburg.  Down Jan Smuts avenue.  And no,  I’m not that old.  They weren’t very fast but always drove on the left hand side of the road.  That means the right hand side was always available for cars,  not modified people carriers.

So why not build something similar?  You’ll tell me that with our power shortages, that is a mad idea.    But these buses didn’t use a huge amount of wattage – equivalent to a household a day to deliver the equivalent of 50 households to work – and that’s just on one journey?

The equation proving this looks as follows :

Sounds reasonable.

I enjoyed the trams in San Francisco,   not too slow and plainly enjoyable.    Non-p0lluting (locally) – less carbon monoxide.

Got to be a good thing.

If you’re going to purchase hardware after the  World cup – make sure you shop around.     Particularly the big hardware brands like Mac which have suddenly actually DROPPED in price by R3000 since the start of the cup but remain pricy compared with the rats and mice instrument the PC .

Why?

Because everyone is imbued with some new spirit of Adams feel all warm and fuzzy?

No.

Because there are more competitors my friend and you can use the Gautrain to buy it instead of from Mac suppliers who’re on the Gravy Train.

Here are price comparisons.  And don’t forget some leave out VAT which can be a bit of a shock as you arrive at the cash register.

Gautrain Route 1 to cheap Mac

(more…)