Columnists

Address rot in public transport sector

JAM

Nairobi is suffering a more acute traffic congestion than it has ever undergone in its history. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Ministry of Transport has suspended a plan for car-free days in Nairobi. How do you introduce car-free days in your capital city when there are no alternatives like underground rail, light rail, metro buses or even trams?

Yet does it surprise that the government is contemplating trying such an ill-informed experiment? The car-free days plan is just but the latest of hare- brained schemes that have been tried in Nairobi in the past. Many years ago, city authorities came up with the idea of banning public service vehicles from the populous Eastlands area from accessing the central business district (CBD).

In that experiment, commuters were dropped off at Muthurwa from where they were to take other means of transport to access the central business district. As it was to turn out, that plan collapsed because of one simple thing: It ignored the extra costs that commuters had to incur on the connecting journey to the CBD.

Just the other day, we all heard about the idea of painting one lane on the Thika Highway red in order to create space to make room for dedicated bus lanes. Surely we have become a society with low ambitions and expectations as this was supposed to be our attempt at introducing a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) in Nairobi. Instead of going the whole hog and putting together a proper BRT infrastructure, including interchanges, shelters and double lanes, we were content with introducing this grotesque caricature of a BRT.

Then came the news that we would shortly be receiving high capacity buses purchased by the government from South Africa. But where is the physical infrastructure to allow the new buses to function effectively?

Mr James Macharia, the Transport CS, has said that the car-free days idea was suspended to allow the government to capture biometric data on the hawkers who will be selling wares on Nairobi streets during that period.

Congestion in Nairobi cannot be resolved by a quick fix. It is part of a complex phenomenon explained by the same fundamentals behind the uncontrolled mushrooming of kiosks, the explosion of slums and other informal settlements- and the expansion of the matatu business at the expense of formal and properly planned and regulated commuter bus services.

Nairobi is in permanent flux - experiencing a constant process of generational and demographic change. Yet what we have done is to leave the city in the hands of a county government totally bereft of either ideas or the capacity to manage the sort of complex patterns of urban growth we are witnessing today. Markets built in the 1960s and 1970s have neither been rehabilitated nor expanded, even in the face of huge demand for services. In many cases, most of the formal markets are today surrounded by expansive and informal markets competing for customers with them.

Right now, Nairobi is suffering a more acute traffic congestion than it has ever undergone in its history. The commuter transport system is in a total mess. In the seventies and eighties, it was possible for a resident to plan his day around the operations of the now defunct Kenya Bus Service passenger vehicles. The buses operated under a franchise with service level agreements obliging owners to provide scheduled services in all parts of the city. The service also created special routes to Pumwani Maternity Hospital and Kenyatta National Hospital.

It operated on predictable schedules and passengers knew when to expect the next bus. Traffic congestion was limited because only KBS buses were allowed into the CBD. The rain started beating us in 1973 when President Jomo Kenyatta allowed matatus to start operating in the city centre, disregarding the fact that KBS had a franchise on city routes.

And, the formal operator could not compete because unlike matatus, it was required to operate with timetables, fixed routes, a large service depot, and a fleet of chase cars and inspectors. Like hawkers, matatus know no rules, or standards. The car-free day should be subjected to a rethink.