People with disabilities are fighting to keep accessible transport services running
Transport is your ticket to the world. It allows you to study, work, visit the clinic, go to church, see friends and so much more. With it, you are able to build community, which improves your quality of life and mental health.
But what happens when you can’t walk, and the roads are too rough for your wheelchair? What if the taxi won’t pick you up? No bus or car can take you? You find yourself stranded and isolated.
For many people with disabilities, this is a lived reality. With no access to transport, let alone accessible transport, they are stuck at home, unable to participate meaningfully in their communities. It feels like a denial of a basic constitutional right – the right to freedom of movement.
For people with disabilities, their right to move feely is infringed on, not by passes or law, but by poorly built environments, inaccessible transport and prejudice. Services like Dial-a- Ride offer some relief to a very small group. But for how long?
In August, the City of Cape Town announced that the Dial-a-Ride service will be scaled back. The service is running at a significant loss. The city expects a deficit of R12 million for this year alone.
This is a big economic burden for the city that, according to Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Mobility, Rob Quintas, is receiving minimal support from national government.
“Every month we are about a million rand short. We have been able to resuscitate, rescue and prolong the service; running the way it was. But every year, it is a challenge to find where the funding will come from,” he said during an interview in August.
“We have the same static figure that we receive from provincial government and our rates here in Cape Town,” he added. While the city receives funding through grants, those usually come with very strict conditions that prevent the city from using it for operational services. If the city breaks the conditions of the grant, they lose the funding.
Thus, operational services like Dial-a-Ride need alternative funding. The Western Cape government contributes roughly a third of the budget for Dial-a-Ride while the rest of comes from the rates paid by residents in Cape Town. This rates budget is shared with other rates- based operations like water and sanitation.
To address the shortfall, the city reached out to the national Department of Social Development (twice) with no response. The city even encouraged the private sector, organisations or universities to partner to help fund the service.
With seemingly no solution, the city announced that the service will scale back to only transporting wheelchair users to work in September.
“We have roughly 2 000 ad hoc users who occasionally use the service. It is being used to go to church, visit friends, shops, etc. Initially, the core function was to take people with severe mobility impairments (wheelchair users) to and from work,” councillor Quintas explained.
The announcement resulted in uproar from the community as the decision was made without consulting key disability groups and will leave many stranded. In response, numerous disability organisations gathered at the Cape Town Civic Centre on 25 August 2025 in protest.
During the protest, QASA board member and newly appointed chairperson for the Western Cape Network on Disability (WCND), Anthony Ghillino, addressing the councillor, argued: “We are not a maths problem. We are people with rights. It is not about budget. It is about human rights. I’m sure that we can sit down with you and find the extra R12 million in the budget to keep the service going.”
“In your radio interview, you said that you sent two e-mails to your national colleagues. Councillor, I get two e-mails from Checkers Sixty60 when I buy groceries. That is hardly a concerted effort. Please, we need to get around the table with the people who matter, with the decision makers at national.”
On a similar note, Marlene Le Roux, CEO of the Artscape, called for equal resources for people with disabilities: “We are not the stepchildren of our society.”
“We need to be treated with dignity. If we talk about equality, it should be part of resources as well. We can’t talk about equality, but not be given resources to get to the opportunity.”
“If it is a money problem, why don’t you cut the privileges of other citizens, and rather concentrate on our most vulnerable. This is not a privilege, this is a right. We love our city, but don’t treat us like second-class citizens,” she added.
As a final act of protest and a commentary on exclusion, the WCND handed its memorandum, written entirely in Braille, to councillor Quintas. The organisation was to meet with government the next day.
However, in an interview following the protest, it seemed as if all the effort was in vain. Councillor Quintas explained that even after the demonstration, the decision wouldn’t be overturned.
“We haven’t gotten to this place easily. We have already looked at what is possible in this financial year and we are heading towards a million rand a month deficit,” he simply stated.
When the news was shared with the WCND, social media manager Lilley Berrington noted the frustration felt by the community. She shared: “We made all the effort to come here today. We are trying to make a strong statement only for him to say, ‘Well, it probably won’t be reversed’. He hasn’t even spoken to us yet. It makes one feel very hopeless. It makes us angry.”
She continued to highlight the irony that councillor Quintas was so set on these cuts after promoting the service very publicly only a mere three years earlier. In a video by the City of Cape Town published to Youtube, the councillor describes the service as a “commitment to being part of an inclusive and caring city”.
As the councillor predicted, the city held its ground even after meeting with stakeholders. It pushed to cut back on the service. So, a few days before the official cuts were meant to take place, the WCND made an urgent application at the Western Cape High Court for an interim interdict to stop the decision.
The city intended to oppose the WCND, but instead discussed a settlement that was made a court order. The WCND submitted a review application mid-October with the city now needing to submit the records of the decision before proceedings can continue. The entire process can take up to two years.
In the meantime, the city is court-ordered to provide uninterrupted service to commuters, which many report has not been the case. Most recently, the service has started requesting that users upload their employment contracts as a way to verify their employment. In a Facebook post, the WCND described it as “deeply invasive and discriminatory”.
The WCND continues to fight the City on its service delivery – or lack thereof. They are encouraging Dial-a-Ride users to log complaints through the City channels and with their secure evidence form. The WCND is also calling on the community to assist with covering legal and advocacy fees through its BackaBuddy campaign.
There is a small glimmer of hope. Councillor Quintas might still get his wish for government to come to the party. At the QASA Annual General Meeting held at the end of October, member of the Western Cape provincial parliament Nomafrench Mbombo shared that additional funding will be made available so that the service can run as normal.
She further urged disability groups to show their presence when budget meetings are taking place: “When there are budgets, when there are public hearings in parliament, you should have representation although the access is difficult.”
“Where it might be inaccessible, you might be able to make a lot of noise on the steps of the parliament. We need your voice to be part of that.”
Although grateful for the financial relief, Anthony did critique the provincial government for not adjusting its contribution to the service sooner so that these cuts might have been avoided completely.
Even in their privileged position of having some dedicated accessible transport, Capetonians are battling to continue exercising their basic right to freedom of movement with seemingly little commitment from government. It doesn’t provide much hope to other communities with far fewer resources.
There is at least one small lesson to be learned. When the disability community stands together, there is progress, even if it is simply inching forward.
So, in the words of the former chairperson for WCND Dr Michelle Botha: “As a community, we stand together. If it is inaccessible for you, it is inaccessible for all of us. We need to stand for all of us.”
