Abstract
For an urbanised region to be ‘sustainable’, attention needs to be paid to building a transportation
network that aligns with sustainable development principles. Such a transportation network should
have a minimal ecological footprint, present limited financial burden, and actively promote social
cohesion. This study analyses the long term, historical transportation trends of the Gauteng
Province of South Africa by comparing four transport studies undertaken between the years 1975
and 2003. Overall, it is demonstrated that adherence to the ‘predict and provide’ transportation
planning model has systematically resulted in the enhancement of road infrastructure at the
expense of rail, and private transport over public transport. Effective, efficient and low-cost public
transport has been systematically under provisioned. Reliance on private vehicles has thus become
entrenched and systemic. Consequently, dependence on private vehicles, which was originally
confined to the white population (due to apartheid, a racial segregationist policy enforced in South
Africa prior to 1994), is now becoming the norm for all race groups. This paper shows how over
a century of racial segregation, coupled with spatial apartheid and weak urban transport and land
use planning, has resulted in entrenched low-density urban sprawl, a problem further exacerbated
by limited mixed land use. Lastly, the study highlights a need for collection of comparable,
longitudinal transportation data if long term trends and challenges are to be understood and if
successes and failures of policies are to be monitored.