Governance Fragmentation and Implementation Deficits in Durban's Sustainable Transportation Transition

Durban, South Africa’s third-largest metropolitan economy, illustrates the challenges of sustainable transportation transitions in rapidly urbanising Global South cities. Despite ambitious initiatives such as the GO!Durban Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network and alignment with national climate and development policies, progress remains constrained by governance fragmentation and implementation deficits. Overlapping mandates across municipal, provincial, and national agencies, combined with institutional silos, stakeholder conflict, particularly with the minibus taxi industry, and limited technical capacity, have undermined project delivery. These dynamics have reinforced automobile dependence, persistent spatial inequities, and rising greenhouse gas emissions, while eroding public trust. Drawing on political ecology and sustainability transitions frameworks, this study critically examines Durban as a case of systemic institutional misalignment that produces a persistent “planning–implementation gap.” The analysis demonstrates that achieving transformative mobility requires metropolitan-scale governance integration, enhanced participatory mechanisms, and capacity building to align infrastructure delivery with equity and decarbonization objectives. Durban’s experience offers broader lessons for secondary cities in the Global South facing similar governance and institutional constraints. Keywords: Sustainable transportation, Governance fragmentation, Implementation deficit, Institutional capacity, Urban mobility transitions, Global South cities, Decarbonization.