Fixing Prasa could change lives for the better

I use public transport so seldom that I hardly ever think about it. So car-driven are our middle classes that I can’t imagine life without one. And that means I don't really think about what could change, how our lives would all change, if certain things happened.

- Stephen Grootes

But after hearing all the conversations about our railways and the big changes the transport minister is trying to introduce, I’ve been struck by a strange thought: perhaps the single biggest change the government could make to the lives of millions of people would be to fix commuter rail.

Millions of people living in townships spend more than half of their salaries every month just getting to and from work. If that was reduced to, say, 10% and those trips were made quicker and easier, it would change everything.

People would have a lot more money to start with. Money that is now spent in cash on minibus taxis would enter the formal economy in other ways, and individuals would be able to improve what economists call their “capital allocation”.