In a recent international traffic survey (Commuter Pain Index), Nairobi was listed as having the 4th most grueling commute amongst the 20 cities the report covered, coming in after Mexico City, Shenzen and Beijing. The average time for commuting to work is apparently 2.1 hours, 40% higher than the survey’s average! (I am very, very glad that my commute to work consists of a 5 minute or so walk!) These aren’t people travelling tens of miles to get to work, but rather just within the confines of the city. With an increasing Kenyan middle class, the number of those owning cars has increased substantially, even in the 8½ years that I’ve lived here. I see this amongst the Kenyan staff in SIL-Africa Area, most of them having bought vehicles in the last few years. So, many more vehicles on the road, but still no ring road around the city (all the containers bringing goods to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, etc pass through Nairobi), and little in the way of road widening, or other developments to improve traffic flow. To go anywhere in the evenings, and even on Saturdays now, you have to allow at least an hour. If everyone were to wait patiently in the traffic, it perhaps wouldn’t be so bad. Yet, when it comes to being behind a wheel, the people-(rather than time-) orientedness of Kenyans seems to go out of the window, each person pushing to get ahead, driving off road, on the wrong side of the road, …… My reintroduction to Kenyan driving after a month away in the US and UK, where people generally follow the rules of the road, was fairly fraught. It’s a battle of who will give in first, as a vehicle comes round the wrong side, then attempts to push in. Or buses coming up the wrong side, coming within centimeters of the side of you. It can be a bit of a rugby scrum at times. You can come away feeling as you’ve been beaten up by all the bullies of the road. The sad thing is that, as a friend pointed out, it’s no longer just the matatu drivers who have this “get ahead, no matter what” driving style, but it’s now affecting the way people drive across the board. And it’s very rare that you see the police stopping anyone for driving behavior that wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere. What will it take I wonder to bring about order on Kenyan roads? Possibly reaching a complete gridlock first?Sunday 25 September 2011
Commuter Pain
In a recent international traffic survey (Commuter Pain Index), Nairobi was listed as having the 4th most grueling commute amongst the 20 cities the report covered, coming in after Mexico City, Shenzen and Beijing. The average time for commuting to work is apparently 2.1 hours, 40% higher than the survey’s average! (I am very, very glad that my commute to work consists of a 5 minute or so walk!) These aren’t people travelling tens of miles to get to work, but rather just within the confines of the city. With an increasing Kenyan middle class, the number of those owning cars has increased substantially, even in the 8½ years that I’ve lived here. I see this amongst the Kenyan staff in SIL-Africa Area, most of them having bought vehicles in the last few years. So, many more vehicles on the road, but still no ring road around the city (all the containers bringing goods to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, etc pass through Nairobi), and little in the way of road widening, or other developments to improve traffic flow. To go anywhere in the evenings, and even on Saturdays now, you have to allow at least an hour. If everyone were to wait patiently in the traffic, it perhaps wouldn’t be so bad. Yet, when it comes to being behind a wheel, the people-(rather than time-) orientedness of Kenyans seems to go out of the window, each person pushing to get ahead, driving off road, on the wrong side of the road, …… My reintroduction to Kenyan driving after a month away in the US and UK, where people generally follow the rules of the road, was fairly fraught. It’s a battle of who will give in first, as a vehicle comes round the wrong side, then attempts to push in. Or buses coming up the wrong side, coming within centimeters of the side of you. It can be a bit of a rugby scrum at times. You can come away feeling as you’ve been beaten up by all the bullies of the road. The sad thing is that, as a friend pointed out, it’s no longer just the matatu drivers who have this “get ahead, no matter what” driving style, but it’s now affecting the way people drive across the board. And it’s very rare that you see the police stopping anyone for driving behavior that wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere. What will it take I wonder to bring about order on Kenyan roads? Possibly reaching a complete gridlock first?
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HOPEFULLY the limited parking at the BTL Centre has alos limited the number of people driving in to work. Matatus at least take up 1/16th of the space on the road compared to 16 individuals in their own cars.
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