But the long distances mean that the bus fleets can often only make one overcrowded trip in the morning and one in the evening peak period. When more than one trip is possible, the return trip is an empty, uneconomical pick-up or fetch trip. At 10am in most of our cities you will find bus fleets and train fleets - subsidised out of public money to the tune of some R7 billion a year - lying idle. It is not their fault. It is not because of poor operations. It is the spatial, racialised geography of South Africa that remains so deeply imprinted on our reality.
With the growing urbanisation of the 1970s and 1980s the apartheid regime increasingly gave up on spending on bus and rail transport for the dormitory townships into which they had forcibly removed the black working class. Low-cost survivalist minibuses moved into that gap. In 1975 in Johannesburg, only 3% of commuters were using minibuses, compared to 41% in 2000. The buses' share of the market declined from 22% to 4% and rail from 20% to 8%, as the cities grew, as the dispersal of people grew, and as a result of the lack of investment in providing transport to these distant places. I agree that it is still happening now.
The emergence of the minibus sector needs to be saluted, of course, as one of the outstanding examples of grass-roots, bottom-up empowerment. But minibuses are inherently not the safest, nor are they the most fuel- efficient way of transporting large numbers of people over long distances on a daily basis. Congestion, pollution, overcrowding and road crashes are among the consequences that we continue to bear as a country for having lost the viability of our mass-transit public transport systems.
We won't overcome all these challenges just through the delivery of more Reconstruction and Development Programme, RDP, houses in the same distant localities, or more bus subsidies for the same daily migratory haul over long distances. [Interjections.] Exactly. There has to be a determined effort to tackle the root causes of ongoing exclusion.
We need integrated public transport systems; mixed-use, mixed-income human settlements; deracialised human settlements; and relatively dense corridor development. These are among the key strategic priorities of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission, to which the Minister referred, which also identified getting a much greater democratic, public- sector grip on land-use management and speculation in property as a priority.
This brings us to the flip side of the same urban sprawl challenges. While the apartheid regime was forcibly moving ever-growing numbers of black people into dormitory townships, there was also something we forget: a major private sector-led, civil engineering and property speculator-driven programme of freeway, shopping mall and suburban housing construction in and around the outskirts of our major urban conglomerations.
Increasingly, the white middle-income households moved out of the inner city suburbs of Hillbrow, Yeoville and Sunnyside into more car-commuting, shopping mall, peri-urban housing developments in Fourways, Somerset West, Sunninghill and so forth. This freeway construction to serve the misplaced aspirations of white middle-income households saw average travel times increase for this stratum as well.
In Johannesburg, car travel times have increased by nearly 60% since 1980. That is partly because of congestion, but partly also just because of the sheer distance at which people are living. Now, unfortunately, because we - all of us - have not always sufficiently asked ourselves what the problem was that we were trying to solve when we invested in infrastructure in the post-1994 period, we also too often allocated too much to car-commuting, freeway expansion, of which the current e-tolling hot potato is a glaring example.
Minister Pravin Gordhan has said that, as government, we have learnt many self-critical lessons from the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. As the Department of Transport, the Minister and I have said that if we could rewind the clock back to 2007, we would not recommend embarking on this project at all. We have made that very clear. However, alas, there is a R20- billion debt. It has been incurred on Phase A1, which is about 180km, of what was projected to be, let's not forget, more than 500km of e-tolling. Minister Ndebele and MEC Vadi from Gauteng have also categorically put on hold any further expansion of the GFIP. Minister Ndebele has also clearly instructed Sanral not to proceed with any other tolling projects, unless much better motivation for tolling is provided, or, for that matter, for any particular project, whether it is tolled or otherwise. This applies, amongst other things, to the N1-N2 toll project here in Cape Town.
But R20 billion has been spent. Alas! How do we pay for the debt incurred? Increase the fuel levy, we are told again. We have looked at that option and there are several reasons why we, as Cabinet, have agreed with Treasury in choosing not to go this route. Above all, as others have said, it's asking a Lusikisiki or a Mitchells Plain taxi operator to pay more for a fuel levy so that we can fund infrastructure, which is basically middle- class infrastructure, not exclusively based in Gauteng. [Interjections.]
What about a dedicated Gauteng fuel levy? That might have been more feasible in the days when the levy was collected at the pump, but it is now collected directly from the refineries and so it would set up administrative costs. We agree that the particular tolling option that has been chosen is very expensive. But, hon Ollis, you can't, on the one hand, boast of a Rolls-Royce bus rapid transit system here in Cape Town - imported, much of it, at great expense - and then, at the same time, complain about a Rolls-Royce e-tolling system in Gauteng. You can't have your cake and eat it, hon Ollis.
Of course there is great unhappiness. We appreciate that. One affiliate of Cosatu issued a statement this week saying: Our aim is to make the tolls uncollectible and force the government and Sanral to find more equitable ways to pay for road improvements. We empathise with the concern expressed by Cosatu for those car owners in Gauteng who are not wealthy, who are not middle-class owners, who cannot really afford a car. Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]