IDEA – Philippi Stadium Fan Walk: 1km Fan Walk from Philippi Transport Interchange to Philippi Stadium
Fan walks similar to the one linking the Cape Town city centre to Green Point should be established all over Cape Town, especially in suburbs such as Philippi, Athlone and Mitchell’s Plain.
That’s the view of Rashiq Fataar, director of Future Cape Town, a non-profit think tank that aims to inspire a more liveable and progressive Cape Town. On Saturday Fataar led a walking tour in the city centre that forms part of Cape Town’s programme for the 2014 World Design Capital.
The walking tour, attended by 33 people, started on the pedestrian bridge across Buitengracht, which is part of the 2.6km long fan walk.
Fataar said the fan walk, one of a series of developments before the soccer World Cup, created a safe pedestrian route from the city centre to the Cape Town Stadium. He questioned why suburbs such as Philippi, Athlone and Mitchell’s Plain were not given the same preference, saying every suburb should have a fan walk.
“Why can’t every community have a safe route from their train stations to their homes?” Fataar asked.
IDEA: 1.6km Fan Walk from Athlone Train Station to Athlone Stadium.
A consultant for Future Cape Town, Brett Petzer, said the fan walk was “beautiful”, and showed “the city invites you and understands you”, whether you’re on bicycle or on foot. The fan walk was an example of how “traffic yields to the more vulnerable”, with pedestrians feeling protected, he added.
One of the participants in the two-and-a-half-hour long walking tour, Dudu Luthuli, said she’d never heard of the fan walk.If she had, she would have used the fan walk to get to the start of the walking tour, instead of taking a taxi, she said.
Fataar said a reason for this might be because “when we do things well, we don’t talk about it. The fan walk is a World Cup success and it’s time we talk about our successes once they’re here”.
Read the full article here which appeared in the Sunday Argus.