Oh no! Not from @FRM again!

@tycho, this is music to my ears. I left employment 2 years ago. Let the middle class shafting continue. Next time they might remember to carry their brains to the polling station.

There's urgent need for the light rail system.......but who told the people of Nairobi (clueless middle-class) and most if not all Govt policy makers that Matatus are the problem?

Here's what I know on matters transport in the city:
40% - Matatus
40% - Walking
5% or less - Train
5% or less - Boda boda
10% - PERSONAL fkcin CARS.

Only 10% of the travelers clog the roads all day long. Matatus are not, have never been, and will never be the problem, even 14 seaters. What lacks is oversight on the matatu crews. We have no body mandated to ruthlessly keep these crazies in check (we killed NTSA, but in any case, NTSA was also clueless, and cannibalized itself by targeting private motorists). Forget about the Kiganjo alumni.

If I were Unye, I'd get NTSA back on the roads, with strict instructions of streamlining public & commercial transport, by way of focusing on the crews and not punishing vehicle owners.....starting with Nairobi. Very doable, and sustainable.

Over time I have consolidated, in my mind, what I think are very practical and rather obvious solutions. In a nutshell:

1. Light rail or tram system covering all the densely populated estates and wherever most cars crawl from.

2. A body over-sighting matatu crews to very strict standards. State owned buses is just another loss making and thieving scam waiting to happen.

3. Feeder roads interconnecting major roads and estates.

4. Endeavour to totally eliminate DUST and MUD on the estate roads, which will encourage WALKING (to work or to the nearest Matatu terminus). Mtu akitoka kwa nyumba apana kanyanga matope na vumbi, otherwise itabidi atoke na gari.

5. Massive investment in sidewalks. We have been doing them as a by-the-way, to very low standards, and they barely last 2 years.

No I have not been to India, the closest I have come to India is through movies or documentaries which ofcourse highlight a perennial traffic problem.

So my other source can only be google and a simple search "india traffic" gives me a dozen articles of the traffic menace in the various cities. There happens to be a survey done by numbeo.com which ranks Kolkata (former Calcutta) as the worst city in traffic followed closely by you guessed it......Nairobi, Mumbai, also in India, is ranked third (we keep good company). So even without being to India, I can almost tell that traffic is horrendous maybe worse than what I have experienced in Nairobi and its nothing to talk about. And if India is what you look upto, your standards are low yawa....very low.

Now on "feeder roads" the name speaks for its self- a road that feeds traffic to the main highway. Kiambu road is a feeder road since it feeds traffic to A2 aka Thika Road, Kasarani-Mwiki Rd, Outer-ring road also feed into Thika Rd. Perhaps you meant link road eg the Waiyaki way-Red hill Link road, that helps but cannot take away much. Now I don't even know where those 100 feeder roads will be feeding into. Nairobi has 2 major highways A104 and A2, so more roads feeding into Thika will just make your Juja road experience even worse.

The reality of the matter is, anyone travelling in those matatus wants to get to town and move on to the next mat to his next destination. The biggest blunder that Kenyatta one did was to privatize the public transport system without streamlining it to conform with the set standards (OTC standards)

Nairobians are walkers, i've been in cities with walkways where less than 10 people walk, and anyway, walking should be for leisure. Not compulsory or mandated. Our walkways are now spots where hawkers are laying their wares. Try cycling and see if you will not be knocked down by a matatu. So lets stop cheating ourselves, matatus, tuktuks, bodas will not save this city. This city is congested and a Mass transport system is the solution. And even if you work in Nairobi, you should be able to live in Nyeri or Nakuru and make it in Nairobi in time.

You are right. The only way to solve the transport problem in the city is to get rid of personal cars. One personal car occupies the same road space as a matatu but ferries only one person. The 14 seater matatu is 14 times more efficient in city transport than personal cars. Therefore we need more matatus and fewer personal cars on the road. Maybe sonko should increase parking charges to 1000 and introduce toll charges for personal cars on all roads.