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Nathan Howson

Member since 9 July 2026

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Have City run post boxes to promote Cape Town.

Nathan Howson•2 weeks ago IssueSince the South African Post Office has closed down most of its branches, it is no longer possible to send mail from most areas in Cape Town.Proposed solutionThe City should run post boxes at tourist attractions so tourists can send postcards back home and promote Cape Town to friends and family.This would just involve transporting the mail from the city run post boxes to the Cape Town CBD South African Post Office branch once a week.BenefitsIf Cape Town is the only city able to send tourist's postcards out of South Africa, it would provide great word of mouth advertising for the City.Postcards are still popular and you'll find them in any gift shop in Cape Town. They just can't be sent out due to SAPO collapsing.CostsThis should be able to be done at a low cost from the Cape Town Tourism budget. Existing Cape Town Tourism staff should be able to take some postcards to the CBD South African Post Office branch once a week. Alternatively, costs could be shared with the tourist attraction involved. E.g. V&A Waterfront.Proposed pilot locations: V&A Waterfront Cape Point

Check the quality of pothole repairs

Nathan Howson•4 weeks ago Once or twice a year, do a random check on the potholes repaired by each contractor. Test a sample of 5-10 potholes marked as closed on the C3 system to check the quality of the repairs. This way, contractors will be encouraged to do high quality repairs so the pothole doesn't form again in the same place.

Sell MyCiti cards at public libraries and other city owned properties

Nathan Howson•2 months ago The new MyCiti cards no longer have expiry dates and they can be topped up online. Sales points no longer need the specialised top up machines. Sales of cards should be expanded to all City of Cape Town cash accepting points including public libraries and traffic departments. Retailers should also be approached to sell the cards.

Add historical water and electricity usage stats to municipal bills

Nathan Howson•2 months ago Add graphs showing the last 3 to 6 months electricity and water usage on to municipal bills. See attached example of a bill from the US For water: This would help homeowners quickly identify leaks in the same month they occur as they will be able to see the increase in water usage without looking at past municipal bills. For prepaid electricity: Adding the usage stats to municipal bills will allow homeowners to track usage without recording all their electricity purchases themselves. Having access to average electricity usage will help them buy the correct number of units each month. For postpaid electricity: Historical data will help them monitor usage more accurately and identify increases in usage without having to look at past municipal bills.

Implement scheduled garden refuse collection

Nathan Howson•2 months ago The city currently has residential garden refuse pickups on a case by case basis at an additional cost. Phoning the municipality to request pickups is inconvenient to residents and results in them just adding garden waste to black bins, taking up valuable landfill space instead of being composted. My proposal is to make the first normal garbage pickup day of the month a garden refuse pickup day as well. Grass and leaves should be added to green bags and branches put in piles on kerbsides. A pilot program can be run in suburbs that produce the most garden refuse. This data should be available from the City's waste drop off points. In addition, park maintenance can be aligned to the monthly garden refuse pickup day to avoid adding extra trips for the truck.

Publish monthly recycling stats to encourage recycling

Nathan Howson•2 months ago Publish the tons of paper, tin, and plastic collected by the City of Cape Town's MRFs each month in the same way monthly dam level stats are reported. This will help raise awareness for recycling.

Consider a traffic circle instead of a four way stop

Nathan Howson•2 months ago If drivers are currently ignoring robots, it is likely they will ignore a four way stop as well. A traffic circle is better suited to the current driver behavior of yielding to traffic in the intersection, so it will require less driver adjustment than turning the intersection into a four way stop.
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