THERE have been quite a few hairy moments in recent months, but the Gauteng provincial government has emerged victorious with its Gautrain rapid rail project after the cabinet gave it the green light last week.

Concerns about the Gautrain came to the fore after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel recently outlined a dramatically higher estimate for the project’s overall cost over five years. It went from R7bn to a breathtaking R20bn — a figure that shook even the most ardent Gautrain supporters. This allowed all the old arguments originally levelled against the Gautrain to resurface, from the fact that it had not been integrated into the rest of the provincial transport system through to the belief that the money could be better spent elsewhere.

And, of course, one could always come up with a hundred different priorities that are more pressing than the Gautrain. But the fact is that the authorities have been well aware of the deficiencies in the transport system for more than a decade now, and have consistently failed to address them. Plans have come and gone, but hundreds of thousands of passengers continue to travel regularly in unsafe trains and taxis as government and parastatals have failed to invest at the required levels in the passenger transport system.

What the Gautrain offers is a chance to transform the economic landscape of the province in a way few other initiatives could. It has the potential to create new economic activity in the province, to boost tourism as well as significantly change the way that people operate on a day-to-day basis.

So the Gautrain is worthy of support, although government would be well advised to keep an eye on future cost escalations. But that is not to say that the provincial government can afford to neglect the rest of the transport system.

It is quite clear that there is massive dissatisfaction among commuters about the terrible state of passenger transport. This will only get worse until the province shows it is serious about implementing an integrated plan.

And the same goes for the rest of the country. If the development plan unfolds as promised, the Gautrain will deliver many benefits to the province as well as to the country as a whole. But, most importantly, it has highlighted just how badly we have done with the rest of the system to date. A comprehensive overhaul is long, long overdue. The issue simply cannot be placed on the backburner yet again.