Nairobi hawkers to ride on bicycles plan

Nairobi hawkers are set to receive bicycles and motorcycles to sell their merchandise in a move targeted at easing their mobility and trade.

The Technical University of Kenya (TUK) will produce the bicycles and motorcycles for onward distribution to hawkers under a government initiative.

Under the pilot project, the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) will provide parking spaces for the manual and solar-powered two-wheelers.

“The plan is to empower hawkers to grow in their business and move up the economic ladder,” said John Kihiu, Kenya National Hawkers Association (KENAHA) national chairman.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is scheduled to unveil the pilot phase of the project which will first run within Nairobi.

Bike parking spaces could come in the form of city racks, bike corrals and bike parking shelters.

The bile parking slots are a potential revenue earner for the county government whose revenue collection is currently being managed by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Nairobi seems to be following on the footsteps of cities such as Copenhagen (Denmark), Utrecht and Amsterdam (in the Netherlands) and Paris (France) where cyclists enjoy seamless experience.

The cities have taken significant steps to put handlebars above steering wheels featuring dedicated cycle lanes, bridges or routes.

Kenya’s bike project comes amid increased hawkers menace within central business district and residential areas.

Economic hardship made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the population of hawkers, pushing them to take up sidewalks and footbridges to maximise sales.

“Because of high human traffic, footbridges are prime locations” says Musili Musyoka, a hawker dealing in ladies’ clothes who makes Sh800 on a good day.

He says he cannot afford Sh20,000 each month to pay for a stall at the market and prefers hawking around Koja area, Nyayo House and the central business district depending on time of day.

The informal sector, which includes hawkers, bodaboda operators, and mama mbogas, employs an estimated 16.4 million people in a country of 50 million people.

This will not the first time a bike project is in the pipeline for piloting in Nairobi.

In 2016, Dr Tonny Omwansa came up with the Nairobi’s bicycle-sharing scheme, city residents would walk into a nearby station to pick up a bicycle for a ride to any destination within Nairobi.

He came up with the idea upon return from a business trip to Israel’s ‘White City’ of Tel Aviv

Dr Omwansa teamed up with innovators at the University of Nairobi’s (UoN) Computing for Development Laboratory (C4DLab) to tweak the idea to fit the Kenyan scenario.