Mohammed Hersi . A hotelier passionate about Tourism & Governance in Africa

As Always I Choose To Remain An Optimist

A double decker JKIA Westlands road is simply wasting money.

I will NEVER tire saying this

Addis Ababa have replicated what Bankgok has done. Sky train not double decker road.

Nairobi does NOT need a double decker road from the airport to Westlands. It’s simply waste of money.

If only building a wider road could solve our traffic headache why is Thika highway already a mess?

What we need is a working mass public transport system. I shared this same solution 10 years ago and many times again. Since then Dar implemented a well thought out BRT system NOT waking up and painting some tarmac then announce that we now have a BRT. I recall sharing images of Bangkok who managed to mitigate big time their choking traffic gridlock.

Well this time I share a very similar image but this time it is right next door in Addis Ababa. Look at the street below devoid of cars.

JKIA to Westlands or even Athi River to Kangemi thousands will leave their cars at home and hop on to this sky train. Well you only get to do this if your eyes are open on those benchmarking trips .

Same can be done in Mombasa . MIA all the way to Mtwapa and in future MIA to Diani.

Finally the fear that Matatu owners will be out of business is simply misplaced . If you own 20 matatus a sacco can own several coaches. A PPP can build the line , lease the line to anyone . Virgin Trains don’t own the railway line.

What is so hard in doing this ? You want to leave a legacy then this is it. In under 3 years this can be done. I believe it can be done and Nairobi can regain some sanity

When public transport works the rich ride the train the poor buy cars.

Well as always I choose to remain an optimist.

Mohammed Hersi

Chairman

Kenya Tourism Federation

Mohammed Hersi

2 responses to “A double decker JKIA Westlands road is simply wasting money.”

  1. Dwayne avatar
    Dwayne

    Interesting views. I however come a report by JICA that stated the government plan is start mass transit system by implementing BRT as a first priority then pick up on other modes of mass transit such as light rails and metros by 2030. It appears thee government is keeping with this plan because the JKIA-Westlands road has a BRT component in it and there are other BRT lines planned too. (The other thing the government seems to be doing is sprucing up the old commuter trains which has existing infrastructure).

    Even though it has been repeated many times, I doubt the entire road from JKIA-Westlands will be a viaduct (double decker). We may just have to wait till they release official designs. Another point is that is being done by PPP. Unless there is some land acquisition, I don’t think the tax payer is footing the bill this time. However when its done, they will have to pay some toll charges.

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  2. Polycarp Kadima avatar
    Polycarp Kadima

    Very intelligent ideas but this road was mooted 10 yrs ago and as usual the west being the monitor of progress denied us loans so now that China is willing to invest in us let’s give the project a chance ,we cant have trains that use electricity yet otherwise they will stall halfway with our usual power rationing .

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