Mega city transport projects that never take off

For the last five years, several plans on how the city’s roads can be decongested have been mooted and laws created, but very few have been actualised.

Competing interests, duplication of roles, endless planning and grandstanding by stakeholders are standing in the way of an efficient traffic flow and a working public transport system in Nairobi.

For the last five years, several plans on how the city’s roads can be decongested have been mooted and laws created, but very few have been actualised.

On Friday, another plan was unveiled during a stakeholders’ meeting chaired by the Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (NAMATA) that would, among many other things, get rid of matatus from the city centre.

Under the new plan, the national government in partnership with the county governments of Nairobi, Kiambu, Kajiado, Machakos and Murang’a will create a bus rapid transit system that will connect the five counties.

NAMATA, which is implementing the plan, was created in February through an executive order by President Uhuru Kenyatta. It was allocated Sh200 million to work on how to get rid of the traffic mess in the capital and its environs.

Matatu owners have, however, threatened to resist any attempt to get them out of the Central Business District (CBD), saying it is personal cars instead that should not be allowed to park in the city centre.

“Matatus are not the problem since they are less than 10 per cent of the vehicular traffic in the city,” Simon Kimutai, the Matatu Owners Association (MOA) chairman, told Sunday Standard.

Drop passengers

“A matatu is a tool that makes things work. Why should we allow cars, which carry let’s say three individuals each to park in one slot for 10 hours when a matatu just parks in a stage for 10 minutes but ferries hundreds of people in a day?” he asked.

Under the new proposals, special bus parks will be created out of town where matatus will drop passengers. The passengers would then board a shuttle that will bring them to the CBD. If implemented, the plan will contradict an earlier law gazetted in May by former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero that was supposed to create intercity routes.

Kidero’s vision was to have intercity buses operating like the Kenya Bus Service of the 1980s and 1990s to transport passengers to opposite sides of town without the need of a connecting vehicle.

To reduce dependence on matatus, NAMATA wants to create corridors for a rapid bus transport system. World Bank committed to invest $300 million (Sh31 billion) in the project in 2012, in addition to $113 million (Sh11.6 billion) from the Kenyan government. “One of our key outputs is to develop five corridors that will be used to enhance the transport system,” said Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia.

In the plan, ‘Ndovu’ line will run from Kangemi to Imara Daima, ‘Simba’ from Rongai to Kenol in Murang’a and ‘Chui’ from Tala to Ngong. ‘Nyati’ corridor will run from Kiambu to Imara Daima while ‘Kifaru’ will run from Kayole to Ngong.

“We have already started constructing some of these corridors like Outer Ring Road will have a special bus lane,” said Macharia who met governors from Nairobi, Murang’a, Kiambu, Machakos and Kajiado on Friday.

But it is not just the Transport CS who has recently come up with grand plans. Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko also has his own plans, which if implemented will in some ways contradict the national government’s ideas.

“We will implement the Nairobi Metropolitan Traffic Decongestion Plan in the Central Business District that will create unidirectional traffic movement, create dedicated bus lanes and remove on-street parking,” Sonko says in his manifesto.

“We will only allow buses with over 60 passengers to use roads within CBD. The CBD will be expanded to include Westlands, Pangani, Eastleigh, Lusaka Road, Langata Road, Mbagathi Road and Hurlingham,” says the manifesto.