The eThekwini municipal manager Musa Mbhele has unveiled the Metro’s plans to transform the Durban CBD into a “walk-about city”.
Speaking on the city’s podcast, ‘eThekwini Matters’, Mbhele said the city has so far spent about R1 billion on inner city regeneration projects.
He was speaking on the urban regeneration of the CBD.
On the City’s plan to develop a “walk-about city” Mbhele said, “first of all, accessibility and ‘walkability’ are the key principles of this strategy.
“We have to ensure that we pedestrianise some of the streets in the city. Widen pavements so that people can walk more and jog more but over and above that, you need to ensure that you limit the use of motorised transported make people rely on public transport, walk to public transport and cycle if they need to,” said the city manager.
He said the projects for this transformation of the CBD are in the pipeline, “We are going to start with Pixley Ka Seme street, and start pedestrianising it on different blocks for the next 12 to 16 months. People are going to see that we are going to start diverting traffic so that we increase ‘walkability’ and connectivity between different precincts of the CBD.”
Mbhele said the inner city was a crown jewel of the Metro adding that it has the potential of catalytic projects that are valued at R18bn over the next 20 years.
“We need to harvest that potential quickly,” he said adding that the City has laid the groundwork for some of these projects to break ground when they are ready.
“This city in a couple of years is going to be a precinct with a lot of development and cranes taking to the sky-line,” Mbhele said.
The Mercury