Bree Street Taxi Rank in ruins as nearby R516m transport hub lies empty

Part of the concrete benches at the Bree Street Taxi Rank in the Johannesburg CBD, once designed as monuments to commuter patience, now lie in ruins. The benches have been broken in ways that defy physics, as no one can say what force toppled such strong concrete slabs.

The outer wall of the taxi rank, with its back towards Newtown, is wallpapered with notices pleading, “Do Not Urinate Here”. But the smell of urine announces itself long before the property comes into view. For years, people have been using the outer wall to urinate rather than brave the conditions in the facility’s bathrooms.

For R3, commuters are granted entry into the taxi rank bathrooms. Most of the taps don’t run, the toilets don’t flush and the lights don’t shine. Vandals have stripped the toilet tanks bare, with no tank covers, valves, handles or levers, but somehow still in use. For your R3, you get a flimsy ration of prepared toilet paper.

The lights in parts of the rank have been removed, leaving commuters to navigate by instinct or by the light of their cellphones. This has been the case in many parts of the taxi rank, worsening on the second level, which caters for, among other people, Soweto commuters.

There has been minor progress. When Daily Maverick visited Bree Street recently, some of the lights had been fixed.

“Most of the wall damage that you see is caused by drivers who drive into the wall,” a queue marshall said.

Sihle Makhanya, spokesperson for the Faraday Taxi Association, one of the biggest in Joburg, said, “The state of the Bree Street Taxi Rank is very bad. But Metro Mall B is in no better condition because the entire structure there trembles, but we are in Metro Mall A, and we will leave the problems of Metro Mall B to those who use it.”

Metro Mall B serves areas such as Eldorado Park, Westbury and Coronationville.

Leaks are another problem.

“Regarding our Metro Mall A, now that summer will be approaching, we don’t know what to do because the structure has many leaks in summer and we don’t know the cause, but it’s really bad for our business, not to mention our customers,” Makhanya said.

He said companies had been contracted to handle cleaning the facility.

“But they just disappeared, and we don’t know what happened or what agreement they had with the city. We also did not ask too many questions because we are used to each one looking after their own working space,” he said.

“We clean the taxi rank ourselves,” said Makhanya.

“We manage to keep going, despite the many challenges, by patching up wherever continuing work would otherwise be impossible,” Makhanya said.

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Associations have patched up the lower level of the taxi rank, which was strewn with large potholes. Other bays still have big potholes.

Gauteng South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) spokesperson Graham Fritz said the lack of lighting at the Bree Street Taxi Rank was a serious safety concern.

“However, because Santaco does not own or manage the facility, we cannot undertake infrastructure repairs without the City’s approval,” Fritz said.

Commuter Themba Mdlalose, 44, from Soweto, told Daily Maverick, “My worst shock was going many weeks with bricks scattered across the floor as makeshift stepping stones against the flooding inside. Commuters wobble through, forced to balance like tightrope walkers in a space meant to ease their journey. We are a joke to these people.”

The Bree Street Taxi Rank – now officially the Lilian Ngoyi Street Taxi Rank – opened in 2002 in the Johannesburg CBD. It covers 60,000 square meters. It is officially owned and managed by the City of Johannesburg, in cooperation with taxi associations.

Power outages will often interrupt electricity supply at the rank. Makhanya said that the municipality provided a large generator as a back-up during power outages, but “the problem is that the municipality never provided us with people with [the] know-how on how to operate the power engine”.

He said he was not sure if the generator worked because it had never been used.

“If we had people who can start it, we would make sure that it’s always filled up.”

“You walk into the Bree Taxi Rank and it’s so dark inside,” commuter Laura Mudau, 29, from Soweto, said. “When you think of taking out your phone to use the light, you quickly remember that criminals might snatch it. Please, can we be taken seriously as commuters?

Red tape

Makhanya said operators had secured potential investors for the upkeep of the ranks, but red tape blocked the process. He said that during negotiations, the City of Johannesburg had been evasive when the issue of potential funders was raised.

“The municipality said the Bree Street Taxi Rank is one of their projects, and that they were responsible for it,” Makhanya said.

He said their last negotiation with the municipality was for the taxi industry to take responsibility for its upkeep. Santaco’s Fritz echoed Makhanya’s sentiments on handing over the Bree Street Taxi Rank’s management to the taxi sector.

“Unfortunately, government and municipalities have generally been reluctant to hand over the management of the facilities,” he said.

Fritz said the taxi industry could be trusted to manage facilities, and that the rank in Randburg stood as proof.

R500m facility still closed

In July, taxi operators protested against the City’s failure to open the Johannesburg International Transport Interchange (Jiti), a R516-million facility completed in 2021, that sits diagonally opposite Bree.

“The march at the new facility… was to say the municipality must open the Jiti because it’s been many years since it was completed,” Makhanya said.

Fritz said Santaco had repeatedly pressed the City of Johannesburg on the unopened facility, which had space for 648 taxis.

The City has promised feedback on the reasons for the delay.

Our City News reported in March 2026 that the City was still trying to appoint a service provider to manage the facility, a process it said should be completed within three months.

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Transport bodies such as Santaco have warned for years that the Bree Street Taxi Rank was in urgent need of redevelopment or outright replacement.

“The matter of the Jiti needs to be referred to the mayor, because taxi associations have signed up for occupancy and are awaiting the municipality,” Theo Malele, National Taxi Alliance spokesperson, said.

Daily Maverick has learnt, however, that taxis currently using the Bree Taxi Rank might not be among those who move into the new facility when it finally opens because of cost requirements.

“There were many issues, including issues around agreement regarding the use of the new facility,” Makhanya said.

He claimed the municipality had demanded a fee for every taxi docking at the facility.

“This was one of the things that made it difficult for us as local taxi operators,” he said.

“We would not pay for the taxis because we are transporting the municipality’s own people and workers,” Makhanya said. “Those talks did not even get to how much we would pay for each taxi. We rejected it outright.”

This was not the first time taxi operators have been asked to pay for use of a taxi rank in the city.

“Three or four years after the opening of Metro Mall A, in which we operate, we were paying R36,000 per association,” Makhanya said.

“We protested that intensely because we did not see how paying so much money would help us as an association when we transport the municipality’s own people,” Makhanya said.

Apart from being asked to pay, Makhanya said the Jiti facility had been designed for long-distance transport such as buses and long-distance taxis.

“The only space we might be able to access inside the new facility when it opens is the stalls, when they are allocated,” said Makhanya.

The City of Johannesburg did not respond to requests for comment. DM