More bus troubles

The Mercury reports today on its front page that the city is poised to buy back the buses originally sold to Remant Alton. The proposal seems to be that city will take over the maintenance of the buses but that Remant Alton will still run the service??? The opposition councillors are understandably up in arms and asking why another contractor is not being sought. The city manager, Dr Michael Sutcliffe, is quoted as saying that the buyback will save us R50-million a year. I wonder if this in addition to the yearly R40-million that the original sale to Remant Alton was going to save us?

Bus debacle

I more or less forgot about this blog after establishing it last year to publish news snippets about current goings-on in Durban. These include items that catch my eye but don't belong in the main part of the Facts About Durban but which, in time, will become history themselves. I'll add to the blog on an irregular basis but you can always subscribe to a feed which will notify you of updates. Just click the Atom link to the right of this page just below the Archives section.

In 2003 I completed an article on the highlights from the history of public transport in Durban . I noted that, on 1 June 2003, Durban had privatised its buses and I went on to say that that I felt it had been a mistake. The bus fleet started looking tattier practically from day one and I have referred to at least one occasion [see the entry for 21 March 2006 here] when large numbers of Durban buses were inspected and found to be unroadworthy.

Things seem to have come to a head with the Sunday Tribune of 9 March, 2008, reporting that John Steenhuisen of the Democrtic Alliance had said that ratepayers might have to fork out R150-million to restore the bus service if the municipality took it back from the current owner, Remant Alton. It was reported that City manager Mike Sutcliffe had said there was no proposal to take back the service but Victor Baloyi, head of Ethekwini Transport Authority had apparently said that there was.

Watch this space for further details as they emerge.

A major beachfront fire

Welcome to my new blog on interesting things happening in and around Durban. I came up with the name Dateline Durban and was pleased to hear that a dateline refers to both to the time and the place where a story originates, and so it fitted my purpose very well.

I had been meaning to start this blog for some time but things came to a head because there was a major fire in a hotel on the beachfront last night and I thought that it would make an ideal item to start off with.

The Mercury reported that the fire broke out on the ninth floor in the Seaboard Hotel on the corner of Point Road and West Street (that curved-fronted building that once held the Casbah Burger Box and the One Rander Restaurant) at about 7pm on June 25, 2007. Ten fire engines, a full third of those available to the city as I recently found, were in attendance and five teams of six firemen each went into the 31-storey building to try and fight the fire.

Firemen advised people trapped by the fire to go to the roof where about 120 were rescued by a SA Police Services helicopter and the Port Authority's pilot helicopter. The two smaller machines were later joined by an Oryx of 15 Squadron SAAF. Those airlifted to safety included seven-month-old Louvain Oosthuizen.

Later in the day, the Daily News reported that more than 92 people had been flown to safety by the helicopters. The paper reported that rescuers at the scene were saying that the blaze was the biggest in the province for decades. Five firemen were apparently burnt in the fire, with one being serious enough to require intensive care

How's this for coincidence? Yesterday, I completed a story on Durban's fire brigade and submitted it to Metrobeat magazine early this morning. I guess I'll have to add to it now.

MORE: See entry for 26 June 2007 here.