The City of Cape Town is calling for comment on its proposed Mobility and Access Plan for the Cape Town CBD which forms part of its draft LSDF for the city centre.

The first draft LSDF and proposed Implementation Plan was made available for public comment in September/October 2024 to which the City has refined, considering the commentary received during the first round of public participation. The proposed Implementation Plan comprises programmes, projects, and actions to be put into action by various City departments with support from the private sector and other inter-governmental stakeholders in various priority precincts within the CBD.

The Mobility and Access Plan aims to optimise the use of existing transport infrastructure to enable better movement around the CBD, proposing some bold interventions to make the city centre more pedestrian friendly by creating a walking and cycling network. The main ideas include improving walkability in the heart of the CBD around public transport stations and terminus and to divert through-traffic onto bypass roads with targeted safe crossings for pedestrians and cyclists. The decongestion zone would include superblocks like those in Barcelona, but relevant in a local context.

The municipality’s strategic objectives are to prioritise public transport along transit streets (Darling and Adderley Streets) and related street sections; to re-prioritise lower order streets from vehicular traffic to pedestrian-friendly spaces; to support internal economic growth and social activity along busy streets such as Bree, Long, and Loop Streets and to retain most of the vehicular movement on high order bypass routes such as Buitengracht, Buitensingel, Mill, Tenant, and Christiaan Barnard Streets (and the Foreshore freeway precinct).

The City also intends on developing a parking plan for the CBD to facilitate a gradual transition from private vehicle dominance towards a more people-centred environment that encourages walking, cycling, and the use of public transport. The parking plan will elaborate on the provision of park-and-ride facilities on the periphery of the CBD to ensure the area becomes as car-free as possible.

Another key priority is to develop an integrated transport and land use solution for the Foreshore Precinct with a feasibility study underway, says the municipality. The current freeway viaducts carry significant traffic during the morning and afternoon peak times with the scoping study aimed at developing an optimum transport and land use solution.

“The primary objective as it relates to pedestrians and cyclists is to, ideally, arrive at a ‘car free’ CBD in future where the freeways, major mobility routes, and minor mobility routes facilitate vehicular access to and from the area, and where the inner grid of lower order streets gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists. This plan must be supported by a parking plan. I want to reiterate that the transition to this vision will not happen overnight and will have to be sequenced with the improvement of public transport services, in particular the restoration of the passenger rail service in coming years,” says the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Mobility, Councillor Rob Quintas.

The proposed Mobility and Access Plan for the Cape Town CBD is available for public comment until the 11^th of May 2025. The City also encourages interested parties to attend the online information sessions taking place on:

• Tuesday, 15^th April 2025 between 14:00pm and 15:00pm.
• Thursday, 24^th April 2025 between 15:00pm and 17:00pm.
• Wednesday, 7^th May 2025 between 15:00pm and 17:00pm.

The links for the online sessions can be found here.