Decongesting The City

According to a notice published in the dailies on Thursday, the county government of Nairobi gave a directive to stop MATATUS from entering the CBD. The move comes a day after the governor of Nairobi Hon.Mike Sonko, promised to reduce parking fees for private motorists from 300 to 200 shillings starting December.

The move is aimed at decongesting the City which according to 2017 traffic index, Nairobi city remains one of the worst cities struggling with traffic congestion. The report by numbeo.com a Serbian based website indicates that the residents of Nairobi spend 62.44 minutes in traffic making it worst in Africa followed by Cairo 51.56 minutes. Then Pretoria and Johannesburg 49 and 45.15 minutes respectively. 

The notice signed by acting County secretary Pauline Kahiga stated that, PSVs operating Mombasa and Langata Road will now drop and pick passengers at Hakati terminus while those from Jogoo road will use Muthurwa as their Main terminus.
Those operating on Uhuru highway, kiambu, Thika Road, Kipande Road and Limuru Road will park and drop passengers at Fig tree in Ngara, while those from Ngong Road will drop and pick passengers from Railways.

PSVs operating past Kenol on Nyeri-Meru Nairobi Road and all upcountry PSVs accessing the city via Waiyaki Way will now drop and pick from park road terminus.

The directive will take effect as from 3rd of December, revoking all previous gazette notices or letters allocating any other place as picking and dropping points within the CBD. 

This, however, is not the first attempt to decongest the city, several attempts of effecting the ban have been tried and failed as a result of transport operators finding it hard to abide by the rules claiming that the space in the allocated areas is not enough.

The city currently has 16,000 PSV vehicles making trips in and out of the CBD.