Dutch spatial and transportation policies useful in South Africa?

Abstract

Paper presented at the 20th Annual South African Transport Conference 16 - 20 July 2001 "Meeting the transport challenges in Southern Africa", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. ABSTRACT: A shortage of space forced Dutch planners and policy makers to develop and implement advanced and coherent spatial and transportation policies. These policies include topics such as the allocation of land, liveability and safety. Of course South Africa has much more space. Nevertheless limited funds also force South Africa to develop and implement land-use policies and it appears that the goals are not so different from the Dutch ones. The paper looks at whether and how Dutch policies might help solving the local problems. The latest policies (the corridor-approach) show that South Africa moves toward integrated settlement and transport planning. The Dutch integrated spatial and transportation policies are very promising. First results are positive. Although implementation of these policies might be more difficult in SA (the power of local governments is much larger in SA) the expected results of these policies are so high that it is worth a try. Nevertheless, integration of new policies in common practice, need time. After ten years the Netherlands only have the first results. South Africa should keep this in mind while implementing.