{"id":8221,"date":"2016-02-10T06:25:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T06:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jda.dev.griam.co.za\/?p=8221"},"modified":"2018-08-28T06:27:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T06:27:25","slug":"un-agency-invests-r120m-in-corridors-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/un-agency-invests-r120m-in-corridors-of-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"UN agency invests R120m in Corridors of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rea Vaya&#8217;s Westbury Station received a visit from a high-level Mayoral delegation on Tuesday, 9 February. The JDA was on hand to show officials and their guests around its latest developments in Westbury precinct.<\/p>\n<p>United Nations agency the Global Environment Fund (GEF) is to invest more than R120-million in Johannesburg&#8217;s emerging Corridors of Freedom, signalling a major vote of confidence in the City&#8217;s transformative spatial redesign programme.<\/p>\n<p>Announcing the investment at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein on Tuesday, 9 February, Executive Mayor Parks Tau said the Joburg Growth and Development Strategy 2040 committed the City &#8220;to providing a resilient, liveable, sustainable urban environment &#8211; underpinned by infrastructure that is supportive of a low-carbon economy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is exactly what the Corridors of Freedom programme seeks to achieve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>RESOURCE DATA TO INFORM INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking alongside GEF chief executive Naoko Ishii, Mayor Tau said the City&#8217;s partnership with the GEF would contribute towards greenhouse gas emission reductions in Johannesburg through an integrated urban planning approach involving a number of pilot projects.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, these projects will help ensure sustainability, integration and accessibility in the development and implementation of the City&#8217;s physical plans, the Mayor said.<\/p>\n<p>For example, a pilot process will be launched that uses aggregated data on resource efficiency to inform the City&#8217;s infrastructure planning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The partnership projects will also see to the improvement of urban food security in the City by increasing the efficiency of food flows and improving peri-urban agriculture techniques.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>CORRIDORS TO CREATE EQUAL ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITIES<\/h3>\n<p>Mayor Tau described the Corridors of Freedom programme as a catalyst for implementing the national government programme &#8211; of building a non-racial, non-sexist, socially and economically cohesive South Africa &#8211; at city level.<\/p>\n<p>The programme uses transit-oriented development (TOD) to transform the City&#8217;s spatial layout and citizens&#8217; relationship with it. By reversing the spatial legacy of apartheid, it seeks to create equal, sustainable access to opportunities for all the people of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>The expanding Rea Vaya bus rapid transit (BRT) network, the award-winning Fleurhof development in the south-west of Johannesburg, and the launch of Metrobus&#8217;s new green fleet are just some of the programme&#8217;s flagship projects.<\/p>\n<h3>SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ALONG THE CORRIDORS<\/h3>\n<p>Following Tuesday&#8217;s media briefing, Mayor Tau took the GEF delegation on a tour of the emerging Empire-Perth Corridor of Freedom, starting with a BRT ride from Braamfontein to Westbury.<\/p>\n<p>At Westbury, officials from the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), a key entity in the implementation of the Corridors programme, briefed the delegation on Corridor-related developments in the Westbury precinct.<\/p>\n<p>These include the multi-million rand Westbury Clinic &#8211; one of four Corridors of Freedom clinics currently being built by the JDA &#8211; a new pedestrian bridge at Westbury Station, an upgraded social development centre, upgraded recreational park, and catalytic public environment upgrades along key thoroughfares in the area.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rea Vaya&#8217;s Westbury Station received a visit from a high-level [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-releases-2016"],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jda.org.za\/archived\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}