|
Nairobi choked with traffic
28/09/2007 15:34 - (SA)
Nairobi - Once known as East Africa's green "City in the Sun", Nairobi has become so choked with traffic that Kenya's architects suggest moving to a new capital and angry business leaders say the booming economy is under threat.
A combination of bad drivers, ramshackle vehicles,
overloaded trucks, potholed roads and corrupt traffic police
make one of Africa's biggest cities resemble the dodgems on a good day and, when things get really bad, reduce it to gridlock.
Swarming minibuses, known as matatus, are the only option
for most Nairobi commuters, but they are notorious for their
drivers' kamikaze tactics and their crumbling mechanical
condition, which often means no lights at night.
Matatus, weaving wildly from lane to lane, account for 80% of public transport and are a major cause of congestion.
Fatal crashes are common. The Sunday Nation newspaper called
a recent spate of matatu accidents a "national slaughter."
Kenya's crumbling roads and the chaotic traffic have become a political issue ahead of elections in December, denting the popularity of President Mwai Kibaki.
A recent survey said traffic jams were costing Nairobi
drivers up to 50m shillings (R5.2m) a day through
increased fuel consumption, mechanical damage and pollution.
"The amount of fuel used is astronomical, just sitting in traffic idling away, " said Betty Maina, head of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers.
"Things are delayed, you don't accomplish as much, it takes longer getting to meetings and events. You get up earlier trying to beat the traffic but sometimes you just cannot beat it."
She said the turnaround time for trucks and vans had doubled
and some companies were increasing the sizes of their delivery
vehicles because of the delays, compounding the problem.
Shift capital?
The Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) last month
asked the government to move the capital elsewhere.
"Nairobi was designed half a century ago for a population of
half a million people while the population today is three
million. This has overstretched entirely all the services of the whole city," AAK chairman Gideon Mulyungi said in a speech.
City traffic is worst on Friday evenings, especially near
pay day. When rain turns the potholes into ponds, there is
chaos.
The jams are regularly compounded by a string of accidents
and breakdowns, many involving ancient trucks which have a
tendency to roll backwards down Nairobi's many hills.
Yet experts, including Japanese road engineers who did a
two-year study, say Nairobi's problems are not insurmountable and nothing like as complex as some cities.
While traffic has expanded by up to 300% in a decade, the roads have not.
There is only one road, the Uhuru Highway, running right
through the city and it is punctuated by a string of roundabouts acting as anarchic traffic traps.
The highway is used not only by most commuters but also by
heavy trucks transiting to all parts of the country, including
from the port of Mombasa to Uganda and central Africa.
By the end of the Daniel Arap Moi era only 20% of the country's roads were in adequate condition.
"By 2002, things were so bad that what was happening was
there was no competitive tendering at all. Just a cartel of five
cowboy contractors," said a former government engineer who asked not to be named.
"They quoted whatever they liked and then doubled or tripled
it. They got paid and did not do the job and then claimed more
because of bad weather."
Economic boom means more vehicles
It is taking years to overcome the backlog. Even now, five
years later, about 57% of the network is in poor shape,
while the booming economy puts even more cars on the road.
Big donor countries privately express frustration that the
comprehensive 2006 Japanese plan for solving Nairobi's road and traffic problems has still not been implemented.
Roads Ministry spokesman Richard Abura said it had taken
time to find donors to fund the work. "Early this year we
started implementing the report. We are going to concession the
bypasses as soon as we get some funding."
In April, President Kibaki announced plans for a 2bn
Kenyan shilling (R210m) Chinese project to widen the Uhuru
Highway and link it to the west of the city.
But some Western donors complain this is not coordinated
with the Japanese plan and many people remain sceptical at the
pace of change.
"I don't think this is going to improve in the short term. The issue with Nairobi is that there just isn't a comprehensive plan in place yet," said Maina of the manufacturers' association.
- Reuters
|
News
