The City of Cape Town is studying the viability of establishing a bicycle plant in the city, says Cape Town Transport and Urban Development Authority commissioner Melissa Whitehead.
“As far as we know, there is no affordablebicycle manufacturing plant in the whole of Africa.”
Representatives from Wesgro, the Western Cape’s tourism, trade and investment promotion agency, were scheduled to travel to Taiwan at the end of March to meet with three of the world’s largest bicycle manufacturers to discuss possible investment in a Cape Town facility.
“We would like to provide up to 50 000 bikes each year for a five-year period, so as to address the nonmotorised transport needs in the city, where 17% of our population only have access to walking as a means of transport,” says Whitehead.
“Our vision is to buy a basic bicycle, over a five-year period, for each child.”
Whitehead notes that the City of Cape Town would also like to train local entrepreneurs to maintain and repair the bikes, and to establish infrastructure, such as bicycle racks, across the city.
She adds that the city could incentivise the construction of a bicycle plant through the provision of land at reduced cost, or free of charge.
Investigations are under way that could result in an open tender for the plant, or another type of partnership.
The preferred approach will be known by the middle of the year.
“We cannot select a sole bicycle pro- vider without a tender process, unless [the company] can provide an innovation or manufacturing methodology not available in the rest of the world,” says Whitehead.