(Normal service has indeed resumed, in case you’re wondering.)
The City of Cape Town has published the road closures for the Opening of Parliament tomorrow. You can click the link if you really want a detailed version, but if you’re anything like me and you just want a summary, here it is:
Stay well clear of anything going into the CBD between 16:00 and 21:00 tomorrow.
That is all.
Earlier this month, I mentioned the possibility of using our overly-awesome MyCiTi bus service to get to and from work. Since I wrote my earlier post, Cape Town recovered from the New Year’s hangover and turned the R27 into a massive car park, so in order to keep my sanity intact and transport expenses under control, using the bus service is fast becoming a necessity rather than a possibility. The only requirement for me to switch over is the commencement on operations on the Woodstock/Salt River feeder route.
Unfortunately, according to this press release from the City of Cape Town, I’ll be waiting a while…
The implementation of new routes for the MyCiTi Bus Service, such as Walmer Estate and Salt River, is subject to the awarding of operating licences by the Western Cape Provincial Regulating Entity (PRE). These routes – along with the new smaller buses and newly constructed bus stops and stations, such as the Gardens Station – cannot become operational without these operating licences.
The City of Cape Town respects due process, and from the beginning of the process the application, supported by the City have followed the legal and procedural requirements set down by the PRE at all times. The process began in August last year when operating licences for the new routes, which were then due to launch at the end of 2012 were submitted.
The first hearing set by the PRE was for December 2012, but the PRE postponed the hearing to this week due to objections from concerned parties. The South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) – on behalf of some taxi associations – and Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) lodged objections with the PRE.
The hearing resumed this past Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at which time the PRE heard the applicants’ full application for the required operating licences. Before the City could provide its presentation in support of the issuing of the licences, GABS raised procedural objections, claiming to not have had sufficient time to prepare for the hearing. The hearing has now been delayed until the first week of February.
The City is disappointed by these delays, and that this is holding back the implementation of our public transport service which aims to benefit all people in Cape Town. We believe the objections can be dealt with in a manner that does not prejudice and inconvenience the people of Cape Town.
We trust that this will be the final delay, and that we will be able to activate our new routes and infrastructure soon, in order to bring the world-class MyCiTi bus service to an even greater number of awaiting residents and visitors.
All I have to say is: *sigh*
(For what it’s worth, I was toying with “Help, I’m trapped in a traffic jam against my will!” for a blog post title…)
Following my last entry, I was asked in meatspace for some clarification on my statement on choosing to stay single. Since I get asked this a lot (people who meet me seem to have some strange misconception that I’d make high-quality lover and spouse material), my only answer now is to take the “picture speaks a thousand words” approach, and (with apologies to Randall Munroe) provide an obligatory xkcd comic:
Yeah, story of my life.
You know, sometimes you just get those weeks from hell – weeks where everything just crashes and burns, you feel like you’re swimming upstream against a raging torrent… that kind of thing.
Well, last week was one of those.
First off, last week Saturday, I got back home from our department teambuilding (quad biking at Melkbosstrand – which was so made of awesome, I want to do that again!), flicked on the bedroom lights, and… nothing. ”Well, that’s great, the bulb has gone” thought the protagonist. ”Since I don’t have a spare, let me steal one from elsewhere in the flat.” So, I did that, and… still nothing. At this point, I decided to let things be, since I was heading off for boardgames night (and it was my turn to supply the boardgame), did a quick e-mail check, and noticed that my IRC client had been disconnecting and reconnecting since just after I left for the quad biking. Thinking “well, I need to head on out, I’ll take a look when I get back”, that’s exactly what I did. Off to boardgames night I went.
I returned home in the early hours of the morning, and tried flicking on the kitchen light. Nothing. Noting that my PC was still on, I tried fumbling around in the dark for my flashlight, eventually located it, and took a look at the circuit breakers. Noticing that the circuit for the lights had tripped, I flicked it back on. Kitchen light came back on. Armed with hot chocolate in hand, I returned to my room, flicked the light on – and the entire flat was plunged into darkness. Back to the circuit breakers I went, and noticed that while none of the lights in the flat worked, the trip switch for the lights had actually remained up. At this point, I realised that I had a serious problem on my hands and turned off the trip switch manually. Realising that I couldn’t do much else at that stage, I went back to my computer, noticed that the ADSL was still very intermittent, and decided to get some sleep and tackle it in the morning.
The next morning, fighting intermittent internet, I managed to get the number of an electrician to come and sort the lights out. They arrived an hour later and spent another two up in the roof trying to figure out what the problem was. As it turned out, the wiring to my room ran through an old metal pipe, and the insulation had decayed due to age. Live wire touching earthed metal pipe – you can guess what it did. It actually tripped one of the power phases down at the meter box (and took some other flats out with it). After the problem was found, it was simple enough to rewire and get my lights back – although that’s now left me with the matter of R1,100 that I’m still trying to claim back from the landlord.
With the knowledge that my flat wouldn’t suddenly spontaneously combust, I started investigating the intermittent internet. Within a short period of time, I discovered that the voice service on the line was totally dead, the upload part of my ADSL seriously degraded, and the download part still fine. That was definitely a line fault, and during a quick burst of connectivity, I managed to log the fault online with Telkom. Telkom isn’t known for their service though, so I thought that I would be without internet for a while.
They phoned me the next Monday at work, asking when it would be convenient for them to fix the issue. Tuesday morning was agreed on, and sure enough, the technician popped over right on time. After one hour investigating the flat’s telephone wiring, he decided that the problem lay between the flat and the exchange (which is only around 200 m away). Off he went, and an hour later called me on my now working landline informing me that the problem had been solved.
But wait, that’s not the last thing that broke – just to add to a week of breakages, I managed also to pick up a slow puncture in my car, and that was another morning disrupted to get that fixed…
On the plus side, my code didn’t break…