A controversial decision by the City of Cape Town to scale back its Dial-a-Ride service from September 8 2025, has sparked outrage and a public petition.

Critics say that the move will strip thousands of the city’s most vulnerable residents of their only safe and reliable access to essential services.

For many people with disabilities, it’s deemed a necessity, not just a convenience, and would directly hit living standards and quality of life for its users.

According to the Dial-a-Ride site, the service transports 350 regular users and 2,270 ad-hoc passengers, providing a dedicated kerb-to-kerb transport option for people with disabilities who are unable to use mainstream public transport.

The service has been in operation since the late 1990s, serving individuals, including the mentally disabled, visually impaired, and infirm, enabling their access to healthcare, places of worship, work, education, and community activities.

Under the impending changes, the service will be severely limited to only wheelchair-bound individuals and those with severe walking impairments, and exclusively for transport to and from work.

The reduction is expected to affect more than 1,000 vulnerable individuals.

The City attributes its decision to an “unsustainable” R12 million annual shortfall.

However, this response was met with strong condemnation.

Roscoe Palm, a GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor, dismissed the R12 million figure as a “rounding error” within a municipal budget exceeding R70 billion.

Palm has called on Councillor Rob Quintas, Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Mobility, to “immediately find the R12 million needed to keep Dial-a-Ride accessible for all its current users, and also to expand the service” as the city’s transport infrastructure grows.

The controversy is further exacerbated by the fact that just last year, Quintas had publicly celebrated the programme’s expansion under a new six-year, R28.1 million-per-year contract with HG Travelling Services.

At the time, Quintas stated that this new contract was intended to allow for the expansion of the service to accommodate more eligible users as additional budget became available. The GOOD Party views the current decision as a “reversal” and “starkly at odds with the City’s oft-stated values of Opportunity, Care, Accessibility, and Safety”.

In response to the impending cuts, a petition titled “Stop the Cancellation of Dial-a-Ride in Cape Town” has been launched on Change.org by The Western Cape Network on Disability.

The petition highlights that the service is crucial for users to access work for their livelihoods, enables children to attend school, ensures vital hospital visits for medication and check-ups, and allows participation in recreational and community life.

It asserts that losing Dial-a-Ride would be “catastrophic,” potentially leading to job losses, educational setbacks for children, and compromised health for many in the Western Cape.

“The impact of losing Dial-a-Ride is catastrophic. Without this service, many in the Western Cape will lose their jobs due to a lack of transportation, exacerbating financial hardship and increasing unemployment rates. It jeopardises the education of children who will struggle to attend school, impacting future generations. Additionally, it risks our health by making it difficult to access medical care,” the petition reads.

At the time of publishing, 1,697 people have signed the petition. The petition directly appeals to Quintas, urging the City to reconsider its decision. It proposes exploring alternatives such as increased funding, better route planning, and community involvement in decision-making processes to enhance and expand the service.

IOL

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