TRAFFIC CONGESTION IN NAIROBI

High parking fee not a solution
Story by: Shreya Shah
Publication Date: 7/13/2006

The proposal by the Matatu Welfare Association's chairman, Mr Dickson Mbugua, that the daily parking fee in Nairobi be increased from Sh70 to Sh500 will do little to ease the traffic congestion.
The reasons for the city's congestion are multiple and have been a key concern for decades.
Nairobi expanded out of a work camp of builders of the Mombasa-Kampala railway when the primary means of transport was the ox-wagon. Since those humble beginnings, few major changes have been made to the road grid in the city centre.
The problem grew with the emergence of reconditioned cars as many urban middle-income families, who could not previously afford personal cars, were now able to drive to work.
Since then the city's roads have become choked with motor vehicles of all kinds and in numbers never initially envisioned. The mushrooming of housing estates in rural peripheries in the 1980s has played a part.
While these estates were going up, the city planners failed to plan. Houses were put up but with no thought of schools, clinics, post offices, fire stations and employment centres alongside.
No provisions were made to develop footpaths or even alternative forms of public transport. A smooth traffic flow can be facilitated by installing lights, four-way and three-way road signs such as "Stop and Yield" at strategic junctions and intersections.
These key elements would not only make driving in Nairobi easier but also allow for a smooth flow of traffic and minimise accidents. Apparently, this noble concept is unheard of in Nairobi.
The experimental set of traffic lights at the Westlands/Mall roundabout is a classic example and causes even bigger traffic jams. Because there are absolutely no road signs or traffic lights, you find cars stuck right in the middle of the road, disrupting the whole flow.
Often the congestion is not due to too many vehicles being on the road, but to the absence of regulating signs or devices. Thus all motorists drive, stop and yield as they feel like.
Mr Mbugua's plan is rent-seeking in nature. It can only work in a city with a well-developed public transport network, where motorists abide by the law and roads have no potholes. Clearly Nairobi is not one of these.

Shreyah H. Shah,
Massachusetts, US.
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