Low fuel prices may be contributing to increased traffic snarl-ups in Nairobi

Roads heading to Nairobi city have been jam-packed with traffic since the beginning of the year. Many put the blame on the recent drop in oil prices.

They say that fuel is now more affordable hence more Nairobians are driving to work and dropping their children at schools, hence causing the snarl-ups.

When fuel prices were higher in the recent past, a good number of car owners used to drive mostly during weekends and month end.

If fuel prices continue to drop, more vehicles will return to our roads and congestion will worsen. In fact, some of the benefits achieved by the Kibaki-era roads expansion programme appear to be evaporating as more vehicles populate Nairobi roads

Many often joke that Kenya must be a “rich” country. Only a rich country can afford to finance the large number of personal cars which we import daily and drive them on imported gas – and still have spare wealth to finance fuel wastage in traffic jams.

And here I am specifically talking about personal cars and not commercial vehicles which are an essential and indispensable economic activity.

Car ownership is mostly made easy by fairly easy access to credit. Many Kenyans drive cars because their professions, public duty and business dictate so.

Others in the middle and higher income groups acquire cars as a status symbol. And with a fast expanding economy many Kenyans are graduating into these income groups.

However, many other Kenyans are pushed into owning cars by sheer necessity. These are people who use personal cars due to an absence of convenient public transporters.

Road authorities appear to focus mainly on increasing capacity to handle more vehicles. Their focus should also be on reducing the number of “unnecessary” personal vehicles from our roads.

By unnecessary I mean vehicles which owners can be persuaded to take off our roads through appropriate incentives or disincentives.

The most effective incentive is provision of alternative public transport systems. For public transport to achieve intended results, it has to be rapid, comfortable, safe, punctual, and with convenient pick and drop points.

This is the way to persuade car owners to leave their vehicles at home, while motivating prospective owners to delay acquiring them. Other methods that can be used to control the number of cars on our roads include increased taxes on personal cars and gasoline.

But before taking the taxation step, it is important to put in place effective public transport systems.

Highways and by-passes constructed in the past 10 years effectively opened up Kiambu, Machakos and Kajiado counties to immigration from overcrowded Nairobi city.

It is mostly the middle and high income families that moved to these new peri-urban locations. And most of the families own cars and still work in the city.

These new highways and by-passes are now spewing more vehicles every morning into Nairobi at a rate faster than the old city road infrastructure can handle.

To sort out this problem, roads authorities recently launched the Eastern Missing Link Roads Projects, while similar links on the western parts of the city have already been implemented.

However, the benefits of road expansion programmes will often lag behind an uncontrolled increase in the number of vehicles bought.

The modernised roads are more pleasurable to drive on, thus inviting more cars on to them. Before long, we are back to congestion. This is unless we take calculated steps to concurrently reduce the car population on the roads.

And mother earth is not happy with low oil prices either. If we have to consume more oil purely because it has become cheaper, then we are inadvertently increasing carbon emissions.

In addition to fuel wastage and higher carbon emissions, many Nairobians are wasting valuable man-hours idly sitting in traffic jams. The money value of this wasted time is a dent to economic performance.

As Kenyans continue to enjoy the sweet benefits of low oil prices, prudence must be applied to maintain good habits that lead to fuel efficiency and conservation.

As long as Kenya remains a net-energy importing nation there is a compelling reason to use energy efficiently irrespective of price levels.

In the meantime, road authorities have to continue devising new ways to reduce traffic jams on our roads and improve public transportation efficiency.

Wachira is the director, Petroleum Focus Consultants. [email protected]