Home > Projects > Nairobi Metropolitan Region (NMR) Traffic Decongestion Program
The aim of the Traffic Decongestion Program is to relieve the persistent traffic congestion in Nairobi’s central business district. Over the last 20 years, traffic management measures have been discussed at length, but there has been little implementation in transportation planning to change the trend of congested traffic.
The program has the long term goal of creating a network of monorails and truncated buses. In the short term, the following components will be implemented:
1) Increase Uni-Direction (one-way) traffic movement, including along:
- Moi Avenue
- Koinange Street
- Tom Mboya Street
- Muindi Mbingu Street
- Harambee Avenue
- River Road
- Kirinyaga Road
- City Hall Way
- Parliament Road
2) Create dedicated bus routes and lanes in the central business district
3) Remove on-street parking at the following locations:
- Moi Avenue
- Tom Mboya Street
- Muindi Mbingu Street
- Koinange Street
- Harambee Avenue
- River Road
- Kirinyaga Road
- Haile Selassie Avenue
4) Increase the number of multistory car parks, including at the following locations:
- Sunken car park
- Law courts car park
- Hakati car park
- Central bus station
5) Create Park and Ride stations to service the following highways:
- Thika Road
- Mombasa Road
- Ngong Road
- Waiyaki Way
6) Designate drop off and pick up points on the following roads:
- Haile Selassie Avenue
- Agip petrol station
- Wakulima market area
- Railways terminus
- St. Peter Clavers - kaka
- Moi Avenue
- Between Moi Primary and Jevanjee Gardens
- Kencom
- Kenyatta Avenue
- Simmers Hotel
- Hughes Building
7) Reinforce road reserves on all by bass and ring roads
8) Restrict heavy transit traffic between 07:00-10:00 and 16:00-20:00 on weekdays
9) Allow vehicles with over 60 passengers and standing passengers to use roads within the NMR
10) Expand the Central Business District to include the following areas:
- Westlands
- Pangani
- Eastleigh into Jogoo Road
- Lusaka Road into Nairobi West
- Langata Road
- Mbagathi into Hurlingham.
Resources
- The Nairobi Metropolitan Region (NMR) Traffic Decongestion Program
- UC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport, working paper. Multi-modal Transport Modeling for Nairobi, Kenya.
- You Tube: Nairobi Gets Its Name Back.
The use of traffic signal controller seems to have been stopped forcing police to control traffic yet the former would be more effective.
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This is really confusing for people and shows that there is much to be done in terms of improving traffic management in the city. This would, of course, help tremendously with congestion!
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Near Wakilimu Market the Matatu’s/Buses have taken over.Police are not doing anything as they say the City Hall/County Government has given permission. Can you send your team for observation from 5 P.M.
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Thanks Ramesh. We can see if one of our bloggers can find out what is going on. One problem is the city does not do proper transit planning ie creating proper stops and routes in conjunction with the industry. For example, some route associations should be encouraged to amalgamate and run cross town routes and not clog up streets in the CBD and other busy areas by turning them into stations.
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Without controlling the demand for travel, however much roads are enlarged or roundabouts removed, there will be another volume of new cars “eating up” the created space. Limit the movement of personal cars by developing an efficient Public Transport service/system that will dissuade people from using their cars, apply an appropriate parking charge, introduce a congestion charge in some areas to limit entry, improve facilities for pedestrians so that they walk more, provide safe cycling lanes for people to take on cycling, etc.
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Absolutely! Thanks for your astute comment. When you add in the fact that 80% of Nairobi households do not own cars, this focus on expanding roads while ignoring public transit and Non-motorized transit makes even less sense.
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The government should remove all roundabouts and creat fly pass and under pass in nairobi
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Thanks for your comment. It is well recognized by traffic specialists that the roundabouts are a major problem! Overall, the government builds roads but is not engaging in adequate traffic management strategies (just look at the traffic near Yaya center on the new road!) Congestion seems to give the excuse to build big roads (without catering for buses, bikes or pedestrians) so sometimes you think some in the government are not interested in solving the problem in a reasonable way-improving bottlenecks like the roundabouts and providing better mass transit systems as well as giving better options to use park and ride and walk or take bikes.
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Good practical proposals though require very wide participation with problems on boundaries. Who does what where and when? I have documented nearly similar ones for Kampala City, I am yet to be appreciated and taken on.
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good thoughts but to make real.
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Hi, my name is Linnea and I’m writing and Extended Essay on Congestion tax. I’m examining Sweden as an example, where they use cameras to tax drivers. Would Kenya ever consider this as an option? Would it work? What would be the positive and negative effects of it do you think? If you need to know more about the camera system this is a good overview. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_congestion_tax
Thankful for a reply Linnéa
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Dear Linnea,
I do not know if cameras have been considered as a solution to control traffic in Kenya. I can think of two individuals who may be more helpful on this topic:
1) Dr. Khayesi, WHO Department of Violence and Injury Prevention Disability, [email protected]
2) Dr Dan Orwa, Department of Informatics and Computer Science, University of Nairobi, http://www.c4dlab.ac.ke/?page_id=964
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