I hope you will perhaps write an article on this and I hope the authorities will look into what are the causes of the jam…

wish you all the best.
RAJJ

Thanks for adding to the debate – though I wasn’t aware I was ‘bandying about’ solutions! Hopefully what I suggested is a little more thoughtful than that.

Your comments on public transport are well made. If Kenyans are offered a real alternative, they will stop driving. Look under ‘related articles’ to see where I have made the same case, arguing that our current set-up combines the chaos of competition with the rigidity of cartels. Your point about regulating the nature of ownership is interesting.

But you also say that driving is ‘extremely expensive’. There I disagree – and so do the 5,000 rushing to get registered every month! Driving is clearly not expensive enough in relation to our ‘scarce’ roads, particularly as we do not impose societal cost (not in purchase price, not in maintenance, and not in fuel) on the individual.

Even countries with decent public transport systems do have to put a disincentive on driving, because the availability of roads can never match the individual’s desire to drive. The point is that driving should be available to those who use it for significant economic benefit – not as a free-for-all.

I repeat the point that this is less about investment, and more about management – of incentives, regulation and market structure.

We need to sort out the public transport system as an alternative to personal commuting. By making it more secure, efficient and reliable more Kenyans will be willing to take a bus ride than drive. Already as we speak driving is extremely expensive in terms of fuel used in deadlock jams, poor road network causing regular maintenance and parking fees.

I’m sure the cost-conscious Kenyan will give it a try if public transport becomes what one expects it to be. To achieve this end we need to replace personal single ownership with fleet structured ownership to enable policing and bring in discipline. The current mode of ownership is the cause of the chaotic status of the sector. A sector estimated to be worth Sh20 billion is not to be left to a faceless cartel.

Ole Turana

Thanks for a thoughtful contribution – not ‘vituperative’ at all!

Let me first agree with you wholeheartedly: road pricing is indeed the way to go. If you look at the ‘related articles’ I have published earlier, road pricing is recommended and the London experience highlighted. There was simply not the space available in the current piece to repeat the argument again. However, we would have to think hard about a workable system of charging. Toll booths would cause additional delays, so a high-tech solution of some sort would be necessary, as in London and Singapore. Perhaps a public-private partnership could pull this off. But it would be a vote-loser, and I wonder which government would have the nerve to do it.

On age of cars: I agree that the relevant criterion is ‘roadworthiness’, not age. I am merely suggesting age as a broad proxy, easy to manage and enforce. Ideally, as suggested in the article, we should have an annual test of roadworthiness for cars over a certain age. But I fear we may find that difficult to execute, as it may open up new channels of corruption. If done well, however, that would be the way to go.

Old cars in poor condition, I repeat, have no place on the roads. During last week’s sudden cloudburst, I counted at least one old banger stalled on every road, blocking the traffic and causing huge delays. An old jalopy can be bought for as little as Shs 100,000 and put on the road for little extra cost. That is silly: the cost to society must be factored in.

Fuel prices: yes, a higher fuel levy would deter many – but would also do the thing that you want to avoid: raise the cost of travel for the whole economy, with its knock-on effects on inflation and competitiveness.

First, you defined the problem of traffic congestion quite well but your prescribed solutions were not altogether the most efficient in my view. Starting with thinking at the margin, my view is that if we consider the road a good (which it is), then its occupation by a car means that someone else is excluded from using it at that time and therefore the occupier ought to pay for the privilege of that exclusion. There’s no convincing reason for me why this ought to be based on the age of the car.

At the same time, the congestion implies that there’s a great demand for a cheap product as you correctly and smartly argued. However, not all roads are in high demand at the same time and therefore to go about it by restricting supply of cars throughout the country would be to fail to concentrate on the roads that are most in demand. Good public policy would demand that the costs of motoring on these particular roads be raised. You have figured out what the economist here will argue. The way out for Kenya’s roads is not as much about restricting supply by arbitrary and paternalistic law but by charging for entry into CBD and other roads that are in greater demand. That money could then be used to develop better public transportation systems. An appropriate price would lead the rational driver to consider whether driving into CBD for a few more hundred shillings would be worth it. That is where the conclusion that driving is cheap would lead. London has applied the same with a high degree of success.

Aged vehicles have their own costs and these are mostly of the environmental and pollution kind. This may be solved through regulation yes and also by raising fuel prices to tax that inefficiency.

My intention is not to be vituperative but merely to extend to its conclusion the profound insight that motoring in Nairobi in particular is a bit too cheap.