No intellectual property in transport routes

From South Africa, a story about taxi drivers trying to claim rights in bus rapid transit route: The Citizen tells us, quoting Herman Blignaut, partner at Spoor & Fisher, that "transport routes do not constitute subject matter which can be termed intellectual property".  Quite.  That it was even necessary to say this speaks volumes about the vastly inflated expectations that some people have about intellectual property laws.

There are other legal rights in transport routes and other facilities, so why should anyone try to stuff them into the already-bursting pigeonhole with the "Intellectual Property" label?