Ramaphosa urges SA to imagine a new bullet train and a new city
President Cyril Ramaphosa has great dreams for South Africa
- of a brand-new city and a brand new bullet train between metros.
Ramaphosa revealed these dreams during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday evening.
The president said the citizens want a government that prioritised its rail networks.
"And is producing high-speed trains connecting our megacities and the remotest areas of our country.
We should imagine a country where bullet trains pass through Johannesburg as they travel from here to Musina, and they stop in Buffalo City on their way from eThekwini back here," said Ramaphosa.
In his reaction, transport Minister Fikile Mbalula told the media after the speech, that there is no reason why a bullet train cannot connect South African provinces.
"It is doable; why not? We have built the Gautrain, and it cost us over R20 billion - we now connecting cities and our people. We are moving from the air down to the rails, that is doable we are going to do it," said Mbalula.
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Ramaphosa also told parliament that the government had not built a new city in the last 25-years after democracy.
"Seventy percent of South Africans are going to be living in the urban areas by 2030.
The cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane, Cape Town and eThekwini are running out of space to accommodate all those who throng to the cities."