Welcome to 2016. Welcome to congestion and racism in Cape Town.

Dear readers,

As you settle in to the new year and wonder how traffic in Cape Town managed to get even worse over the holidays, let me tell you a story about my second memory of racism, which also happens to be my first memory of using public transport.

When I moved to a new school in the southern suburbs at the impressionable age of 8 years old, my sister and I started taking the Golden Arrow bus from Hout Bay to the ‘burbs.

I remember my parents’ friends expressing concern about them sending my sister and I on that bus. For some reason, they kept saying we might get stabbed.

I remember being confused about that, as the bus drive was far from scary, rather my #dailycommute was tediously long, and exceptionally boring — winding through Constantia, Plumstead, Wynberg, Claremont… through to Rondebosch where we would eventually disembark a by now near-empty bus.

I don’t think we took that bus for very long — we soon joined a lift-club — but certainly I don’t remember ever feeling threatened in that space.

But these were grown ups, and they were saying that something really awful might happen.

There weren’t many other white kids on that bus: most were other primary school kids from Hangberg and Imizamo Yethu going to various suburban schools.

So, looking back, what I see is an example of how the cycle of racism perpetuates itself in South Africa.

Here were some white elders unwittingly attempting to indoctrinate a fear in to me: a fear of other races, of other classes, a fear of those races and classes who put their kids on public transport in South Africa (and, thus, also a fear of public transport). And using their own fear to peer-pressure my parents into “doing the right thing” for their kids — to do the segregated thing.

Public transport is a class issue in South Africa, which automatically also makes it a race issue.

Our public transport system, like our city layout, is far from perfect. And there are certainly areas where it is a really long and uncomfortable journey to work, school, shopping centres etc.

The aspirational, middle and upper income classes resolve this by using cars. Those who can’t afford cars, use public transport and end up spending a fortune of their time and household income on that service.

Due to my privilege, I am able to live in Observatory, and work in Cape Town’s CBD. This means I have a choice of Golden Arrow bus, minibus taxi, train, bicycle, private vehicle, private cab or any combination these of to get around. What a menu of options!

While my class and race dictate that I use a car, I certainly cannot lean on the excuse of convenience to do so.

For the past five years, I’ve been using a combination of minibus taxi and train (I’ve become an expert on which will be fastest depending on the time of day and direction I’m going in — hence the mix). This is occasionally supplemented with my (shared) Citi Golf, or a private cab.

Before that, I lived in Kenilworth, and worked in Observatory — an easy and cheap train ride each way. So this is now most of my adult life as a daily public transport user.

I cannot claim to in anyway empathise with the experiences of those who are forced to use public transport out of a lack of choice, due to their financial status, as most of those people almost certainly experience a very different, much longer, much more cramped, journey. So, I speak only for myself when I say:

I enjoy using public transport.

It is cheap, and fast (at least on my routes) and safe (touch wood — nothing sinister has ever happened to me during my daily commute — apart from the surprisingly rare unwanted remark, which is a whole different essay on the lived experience of being a woman, that would be true regardless of mode of transport, unless one lived in a nunnery!)

I get to check emails (okay, okay, also social media) before I get to work, which, unless its a #PennySparrow day, is far less stressful than traffic.

I’ve often celebrated the social encounters I am a part of along the way, the stories of people I meet and engage with, or even of conversations I overhear. These experiences are worthy of celebration because they set me in a good mood, or offer me some insight to learn from… they’re human connection moments that I appreciate. Other days, it is just a commute, and that is fine too — there’s no need to over-glorify the frequently-mundane parts of city living.

Being an “urbanist”, I’ve had infatuation affairs with the ‘vibrancy’ of public spaces associated with certain public transport hubs — and I’ve, rightly, been called out on that being a lens of privilege: that for many, those same spaces represent not vibrancy, but indignity… the aesthetic of poverty, of survival enterprise in a broader context of inequality and oppression and struggle and exclusion and pain.

Nonetheless, I still overwhelmingly experience public transport as a positive part of my daily routine.

This month, I am selling my car

I use the minibus taxis, the train and Uber. Its a great combination — it is much cheaper than owning a car, it is efficient and it is safe. My car (and cost of insurance, maintenance, and - if I owed money on it - installments) has become redundant.

It might fail. If I buy a new car anytime soon you’ll know it failed. And I undertake to update this post with reasons why, as part of contributing to the learnings needed to drive the great public transport transition that needs to happen in Cape Town*.

Oh, but the cycle is not broken.

Let’s go back to those white elders instilling me with fear. I still experience this today. People expressing a generalised concern for my safey. Or making very vague statements like “isn’t it a hassle”? (No, a hassle is the hell that is parking in town).

For many who live totally off the public transport routes, convenience is indeed an issue — it would be unhelpful to attempt to deny that.

As said, many have no choice but to suffer the long and (relative to their income, expensive) commute and hope that structural inequality, inefficient and unjust spatial form, and incomplete public transport options are written into our history books. Others hop in the car and tweet about how god-awful #capetraffic is.

For the rest, for those who live and work on good public transport routes (yes Atlantic Seaboard, City Bowl and Southern Suburbs, I’m looking at you), yet drive a car because they, for example, worry about how they would get to the once-a-year emergency at their child’s school, or be able to adapt to those last minute after-work plans: there’s Uber.

Uber has really been the final enabler for me to sell my car, but it has not done it alone — my positive experience of using public transport for many years has been the foundation for this change. And, so, I wonder if Uber will be anough for those instilled with huge fear, to also make the change?

My hope in writing this post is two-fold:

I wanted to share my experience and “announce” the car-free experiment of someone privileged enough to have a choice on this issue.

I also wanted to draw some attention to the intersections between race and transport and ask to what extent can we help to break these cycles of prejudice against entire classes, races and modes of living by making different choices ourselves?

Here’s to another year of Moooowbrey-Kaaaaaap!

Jodi

*Why do we need a public transport transition in Cape Town?

• There’s lots to be said on public transport as a social cohesion project, and most of us know we need a lot more empathy, healing, redress and cohesion in this city and country.
• And on public transport as a sustainable city project
• Too much congestion hampers economic growth, and we need to grow the economy to include more people in the economy: transformation will never be inclusive without growth, redistribution is important but not enough to meet the needs of the majority of the population (much larger in numbers than the minority of wealth holders and employed folk)
• I’m also giving another bump to this piece by Brett, which is about more than cycling

PS I am a hoarder of these sorts of posts. I write them and save them. I am scared to write about race because I’m not always sure its my place to say anything. As a white person I was raised to feel entitled to speak, be heard, be right… and I need to check that. I have been practicing restraint, listening, hearing… I’m learning, and do get it wrong. I am afraid of exposing my as yet unchecked areas of privilege or prejudice in a hurtful way, or in a way that damages mine or others’ progress. I don’t have much tolerance for “progressive exhbitionism” and don’t want to fall into that trap, or the trap of “whitesplaining”. It is no one’s job to help me unpack my privilege, but I do sincerely ask that you call me out on any bullshit on the rare occurance that I have the <insert adjective> to hit publish.