Jam today, jam tomorrow. Jam in the morning, jam in the evening. Jam at midday, jam at midnight. Jam in the city, jam in the suburbs. Strawberry jam on your toast, traffic jam on your road.
I got out of my house in the morning to go to work earlier this week, and found a traffic jam starting at my gate. I got out of my office at 6.00 pm that same day to head home, and found a traffic jam starting right outside my building.
I have been writing about traffic jams since I started work on this column. A quick search on my website reveals that I first wrote about our roads back in November 2003, when I compared them to clogged-up arteries which would cause great distress to the body very soon. I followed this up with an article in 2004, when I recommended that a punitive crackdown on mule-headed drivers was the only thing that might save us.
In 2006 I wrote a piece that brought much controversy in its wake, advocating a road-pricing policy. It seemed to me that we would simply have to go down this route, sooner or later. Many disagreed, thinking I was trying to be elitist and prevent up-coming Kenyans from coming up.
And in 2007 I asked how close we were to total gridlock, and reiterated that this problem had no easy solution. I courted more unpopularity by stating that harsh policy measures would be needed: higher taxation of driving and car ownership, and proper pricing of the driving activity.
In short, I have been banging this particular drum for a quite a while. And guess what, folks, gridlock is with us, right now, right here. It’s not something waiting to happen, it HAS happened. Once upon a time, we had ‘rush hours’. Now, there is no rush, at any hour of the day; it’s all slow. There is no such thing as ‘off-peak’ time on the roads: we are needled by the peak at all hours. And if you happen to arrive at our international airport at the worst times, be prepared to write off the next three hours of your life.
I am now doing what every busy person whose time is of some value is doing: I’m trying not to go anywhere! I see this everywhere: people are reluctant to go out to meetings; they are reluctant to conduct important errands. Note to entrepreneurs: the first person to introduce a video-conferencing service that is cost-effective and actually works, will become very rich very quickly…
More than 200 newly registered cars land on our dying roads every single day. Newly registered, but far from newly manufactured; most are a moment away from breakdown. Equally, idiots in droves descend on the roads every day. These idiots don’t give a damn about traffic rules, or about the well-being of anyone but themselves.
If you want to take public transportation to work, you have a stark choice: pile into an overcrowded matatu at great cost to your personal dignity and great risk to your life; or get into an overcrowded bus at great cost to your personal dignity and great risk to your life. Is it any wonder so many people try to drive to work?
And finally, most of the grand plans we had for building new roads in and around this city have stalled, for reasons we all know. By now, there should have been expressways and bypasses linking up all parts of the metropolis. There are not. The same old roads take on all the new traffic.
So, lots of new cars, lots of drivers with no etiquette and no decency, no mass public transit system worth its name, and no new roads. Your IQ need not be terribly high for you to work out why you are sitting in that jam.
Have you ever looked at those airbrushed and photo-shopped snapshots that promote the Vision 2030 project? The ones that ask us to dream of the metropolis of the future, with its swank new first-world roads? Have you noticed that they never seem to have any traffic jams? I always want to ask: what happened? Where did all the cars go? Which magic wand did we wave to wish them away?
We will remain thoroughly gridlocked until our leaders and policy-makers wake up. There can be no traffic-free 2030 until we do some very hard things today. We have to eradicate corruption in car importation and licensing; we have to actually build roads rather than dream about them; we have to introduce competitive AND regulated public transport; we have to enforce good behaviour on the roads; and we have to make people who want to drive bear the full cost to society of doing so.
What we have to do is exactly the same as it was in 2003. We just never do it. So if you want me to meet you somewhere, forget it. I’m not coming.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Sunny Bindra,
I agree that we need to relook at vehicle ownership and licensing in this country.
I run the risk of sounding elitist, but not everyone is meant to own a car. This is not a constitutional right. In Kenya however, our system treats vehicle ownership as a right, and we are therefore caught in the gridlock that we find ourselves in.
As a suggestion, we should borrow from countries such as South Africa or Egypt, where I gather importation of second hand cars is essentially proscribed.
We could also set an upper limit of age of vehicle, and say that any car older than say 10 years should not be licensed. This would mean reintroducing road licenses. Corruption at the port and motor vehicle registries would also have to be tamed if this is to work.
I think in Kenya we are getting it wrong; we are trying to expand our roads to meet demand for cars. I don’t think this is practicable, especially given our thirst for mitumba vehicles.
To me, it is much more cost effective to restrict the number of vehicles being licensed and allowed onto the roads, of course while at the same time maintaining roads at a good standard.
I remember when I was growing up, owning a car was a big thing, even in a middle class estate like the one I grew up in.
Nowadays, with your first salary, fresh out of campus, one can own a car.
I don’t think this is sustainable, and the jams and gridlocks we witness every day of the week bear me witness.
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Mwangi:
As you will note from the links to earlier articles shown above, I am with you on this. We are mistakenly focusing on roads when we should be looking at cars. Why are there so many? The reason is that no-one pays the real cost of driving – pollution, congestion, etc – and so everyone is a driver. If the activity was priced at its true cost, only the people who really need, want or can afford to drive would remain on the roads. Unfortunately, that would win no votes, so no one will do it…
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This is a problem that was a long time coming. When I was in school in the ’70s and eighties, I never thought about owning a car because K.B.S was running and was working. Now, there is no public transport worth its name, what we have are pretending to offer this service but not only fail but to call it rubbish is an abuse to the word. Our policy makers can get rid of the cars and the problem if they tackle this issue. Personally, I would be ready and willing to leave my car at home if there was a safe, clean efficient public transport system.
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Two years ago,I was not reading your column much.But you saw the problem earlier than most of us.Now,the problem is very much with us.Having read a bit about Singapore,I think we should adopt their transport policy. Have a working public transport system as the one that operates here is not public.Matatus are called PSVs which is a big mistake.Matatus are private service vehicles that offer public service at the whim of their owners.In Singapore,trains are affodable and reliable and it took the iniative of society to make them that way.I hope other Kenyans anticipate a better future and are willing to work and sacrifice for it.
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