Drakensberg Cable Car

m.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/premier-mchunu-wants-out-20160930

More reshuffling.

Latest news article:
www.iol.co.za/travel/travel-news/r6m-spent-on-berg-cableway-and-thats-just-planning-2074745

You can be assured to have loads of noise pollution should this ever go on. Although people are singing here, I see they now have music playing in the cable cars too. This all on top of their standard loud hailer approach each time to approach a station. I hope this project never goes ahead. One needs places to go to for the peace and quiet, not this:

AdrianT wrote: One needs places to go to for the peace and quiet

IMHO, this is one of the weakest arguements against the cable car. Even on Table Mountain, you can head to the far side of the mountain, far away from the tourist centre, and find peace and quite. And the Berg is much larger than the top of Table Mountain!

The top spot is a rather isolated spot where few hikers go. It is badly overgrazed already.

Spend a weekend in the Hidden Valley and you will probably not see a single person. I have often hiked for a few days in the Berg without seeing anyone. I seem to recall a period of about 9 days without seeing anyone on my GT in 2014 - I think the Basothos were all in there houses getting shelter from the rain, or maybe it had something to do with heading up 51 khulus and thus staying out of their way for the most part.

Nonetheless, my point is that the Chain Ladders to Tugela Falls is heavily visited as it is, and yet there is plenty of mountain for us to enjoy.

My problem with them trying to bring 300 000 people annually to the top is:
1) 80 000 is a more likely number (at best), and it is not financially viable at that volume - hence our taxes will have to bail it out
2) 300 000 or 80 000 people's litter, foot erosion etc will trash the area, which is in the drainage basin for SA's 2 largest rivers - not a clever spot to mess with (Robin's report on the MCSA page on this is very good in explaining why this is a problem, worth a read)
3) Tourists wandering off in the mist and requiring rescue, which will no doubt fall to the MCSA Rescue Team - whom are all volunteers and don't even have their rescue related expenses covered (e.g. they drive there themselves, bring their own food etc) - they have not been given a say in all of this
4) The cable car is too long and in the wrong area - there is no attraction at the top or the bottom to pull in people. To quote Zeev Margalit (the director of the Department of Conservation and Development to Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, including Masada Cableway) - something along the lines of "a cable car is not an attraction, it is transport to an attraction". A route such as above Mikes Pass to Castle Buttress or near Centenary Hut to the saddle north of Corner Peak would make more sense - shorter cableway due to small Berg road to the top, and something like Cleft Peak or Mafadi to walk up when you get to the top. Even then, though, I doubt it would pull enough people to be feasible.

Millions of our tax revenue have been wasted on this already, and many more millions will probably follow - if the project goes ahead, billions. We have aging water systems, our electrical grid is still suffering diminishing power output, our sewage systems are struggling to cope with volumes, which is why WHO has declared our tap water unsafe for human consumption (something like 60% of sewage is released into rivers untreated due to lack of capacity, and our water purification systems aren't designed to handle raw sewage in large quantities). It seems to me that a R4b tourist project in the middle of nowhere might not be the best way to use this money.

Let's not forget uShaka Marine World is running at a loss, as is the Moses Mabida Stadium - the Sky Car can't even pull 100 000 people a year, and it is in the middle of one of the largest and most visited cities in SA. How to we plan to take 300 000 people along a dirt road to the middle of nowhere to ride one of the most expensive cable cars in the world.

ghaznavid wrote:

AdrianT wrote: One needs places to go to for the peace and quiet

IMHO, this is one of the weakest arguements against the cable car. Even on Table Mountain, you can head to the far side of the mountain, far away from the tourist centre, and find peace and quite. And the Berg is much larger than the top of Table Mountain!

Nope, people hike from far away purely to go down in cable car. You clearly don't know Table Mountain very well do you? It's like a highway up there. Yesterday it was closed. Pure bliss. I went for a 21km run and saw 9 people on Platteklip. 9? Usually it'll be maybe 200. You forget what will happen to the surrounding areas. People will hike up purely to use the car as the descent. Or possibly vice versa.

Oh, and that wasn't an "argument" as you described.

I have admittedly spent very little time in Cape Town in general, and by no means claim to know the area. Nonetheless, I have hiked to MacLears Beacon, after riding up in the cable car, and recall seeing all of 2 people during the last bit of hiking there. I must have been lucky. Nonetheless, my point is that one does not simply hike to the proposed upper station near Mount Amery. It is 15km from Sentinel Car Park, and over 20km from Mnweni via Ifidi Pass. Not to mention that both of those end points are a long drive from the proposed lower station. We did raise this point in our questions at the Cable Car Conference, but got some lame "it isn't an issue" reply.

Currently the region between the zone of the Chain Ladders trail to Tugela Falls is always packed with people, and lots of people are found close to the top of Sani Pass. But few venture out of these zones. There are the odd cases of events such as the account of the party at Mponjwane Cave last year, but these are rare.

To take my point to a ridiculous extreme, the cable car won't increase the number of people you see on top of Giants Castle. So one wanting solitude can still most certainly find it, even if the project does happen.

AdrianT wrote: Oh, and that wasn't an "argument" as you described.

I don't follow - in a debate, surely it is correct to term one's standpoint as an arguement?

pop-up sideline comment
you get argument (negative context, i.e. somebody that wants to argue, not debate constructively)
you also get argument (positive context, i.e. synonym for a viewpoint or standpoint)
don't get the two contexts mixed up

Not sure if this has been posted on this thread yet, but MCSA's release on the Cable Car from a few months back:
kzn.mcsa.org.za/Resources/Drakensberg-cableway-challenges

intrepid wrote:

1. As stated on more than one occasion during the conference “the train has left the station”.

Or, more realistically: "the white elephant has left the circus".