GroundUp reports that the ongoing closure of Metrorail’s Central Line in Cape Town has left thousands of people who live along this route with very few options to get to work and school.
Over the two years of lockdown, stations and infrastructure on the line have suffered devastating pillaging due to a lack of security personnel. This train line and its stations, once the busiest in the city, have become a shadow of what it was in the 2000s. According to Metrorail spokesperson Nana Zenani, the organisation is prioritising upgrades for 21 stations on the Central Line, while Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has reportedly said that Metrorail’s Central Line will be operational again by the end of July 2022. But it is unclear how over the next five months the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) plans to rebuild and replace all of its stolen infrastructure worth millions of rands like overhead cables, signal poles and station buildings. All of the buildings at the stations that GroundUp visited recently were badly vandalised, with missing doors, windows and other infrastructure. Mitchells Plain Train Station was found to be completely ransacked. The Lentegeur Train Station was in an even worse state.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ashraf Hendricks and view photos of the stations at GroundUp
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