Bold Idea: To make available sought after land in and around Cape Town's CBD, Sarah proposes that Cape Town station be placed underground. This is a bold idea because it would mean the reconstruction of the city's largest public transport hub.
Speaker: Sarah Patterson.
For more information: http://www.jakupa.co.za/
3. Transport, Civic Life and the City
In the neo-liberal context that currently dominates
the world economic system, infrastructures
are proposed as winning
programmes for public investment
and usually gain public consensus, but their often
entirely-utilitarian manifestation within
the city takes into sole consideration the
pressing problems of urban mobility,
invariably causing environmental and
social problems.
Clearly, built infrastructural and
architectural interventions have
social implications, and it is thus
critical to try and understand the link
between the physical and social, as
well as the importance of public
transport and governance in
responding to these realities in a
sustainable and humanist way.
4.
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7. Historical & Place Making Logic
[ Re-establishing Urban Logic – Space and Memory ]
The CTS is located at a key intersection or knuckle point between the Main Road contour and the formal city grid, which was
historically the point of exclusion of those outside the City’s “body politic” (for example District Six and Bokaap). As such, the
revitalisation of CTS provides unique opportunities to invert this historic urban logic. The CTS Precinct also presents opportunities
to make meaningful gestures towards the re-establishment of important urban assets, such as the green links between the sea and
mountain (address to Adderley Street); key desire lines (east-west linkages); and the value of the public realm and interconnected
public spaces and places (Greenpoint Common) to the inner city.
Grand
Parade
District Six
Bokaap
Trafalgar
Park
Woodstock beach
front
Historic Southern
Suburbs Corridor
Historic Northern
Suburbs Corridor
Shoreline 1870
Shoreline 1920
Greenpoint
Common
old city
grid
traditional
access to the
city from port
Company
Gardens
Biutenkant
Buitengracht
8.
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11. Spatial structure & Urban Logic
[ Restructuring the City – Spacemark in Inner City ]
The revitalisation of CTS provides an opportunity to use rail to initiate that spatial restructuring of the city through rationalising the
system and releasing underutilised areas of valuable inner-city land. This in turn will create opportunities for urban densification where
land is utilised in a more holistic and productive manners with increased accessibility for the citizens of the city and new urban
communities or urban quarters. Permeability and integration within the inner city urban fabric in north-south and east-west of the CTS
Precinct is fundamental to establish key linkages: 1) Strand Street to Adderley Street knuckle point for CTS which links to Somerset
Road/Greenpoint 2) Link from Plein Street towards the Foreshore 3) Link from Buitenkant Street 4) link to Artscape and Civic Centre
primary green
linkage-
Mountain to
Addereley Street
to Sea
secondary
green
linkage
current land required for rail tracks
points of
opportunity
linkages
12. Social Logic
[ Revitalising Cape Town Station as Social Catalyst ]
The Station has the potential to reinforce existing social and cultural linkages through the city, whilst providing new urban social
spaces through the development of a new ‘urban quarter’ with focus at ‘pulse points of opportunity’. Integration across the site from
Strand Street to Old Marine Drive is fundamental for pedestrian movement to reinforce the principle of integration and permeability.
The association to Adderley Street as a primary movement system from mountain to sea needs to be carefully considered in terms of
a hierarchy for the CTS Precinct. The linkages along Buitenkant relate the eastern edge of the CTS Precinct and need to be
addressed as a positive movement route and interface to the CTS and potential of the Culemborg ‘tail’ development in the long-term
towards a sustainable model for development. With the CTS as a rail terminal point, the emphasis will be to integrate other modes of
transport in a more dispersed manner, which takes into consideration a restructured public transport system i.e. there are points of
‘transfer’ on the road system rather than terminals or facilities for large buses and taxis. Safe pedestrian movement between these
different modes of public transport becomes critical at ground level, reinforcing the principle of continuous and active ground plane
which acts as a social catalyst for other forms of activity and engagement.
SPATIAL STRUCTURE MOVEMENT STRUCTURE
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27. Cost of sinking of the tracks
Value of the area unlocked for development
In the context of problematic urban sprawl,
is it not a better alternative to other densification initiatives?
R40bn
R500bn
At the time of the study
29. CTS
Salt River
Bellville
Khayelitsha
Retreat
An integrated mobility strategy
High frequency rail on a circular route
Heavy rail connection to west coast
light rail costal and city connections
BRT system of routes
NMT networks that are continuous
