The Nightmare Nairobians Go Through To Catch A Bus

On Thursday I used public transport to get home, on reaching the Central Business district it was a nightmare all over, it was long ques from Kenya National Archives to Bus Station, Ambassador, Odeon among others.

If it was not long lines it was people crowded and scrambling for the few matatus I was left wondering what the association with the weather and public transport system is.

Of late people have been complaining of lack of Matatus both morning and evening

After waiting on the line for hours and finally getting a matatu you have to deal with the hiked prices, some went online to complain on Twitter.

Deborah Salon and Sumila Gulyani did a study on Commuting in Urban Kenya in correspondence with the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, USA and World Bank; they said that a large fraction of the vehicles plying the roadways in Nairobi are matatus.

These privately owned and operated passenger vans and minibusses provide public transport services for approximately 1 million people each day.

One million people using public transportation is a large number of people and something has to be done, including dealing with the traffic jams and the solution is not telling people to cycle to work as UN Habitat Executive Director Maimunah Mohd Sharif said on Monday.

In an article By Katia Moskvitch he states that the solution to traffic jam is not building more roads, the more roads you build the more cars you attract he further went to tell us the solutions that other cities in the world have which are more park-and-ride opportunities and improved public transport to ease congestion.

Several cities have resorted to less subtle methods, like banning cars from driving on certain days, alternating between cars with license plates that end in, say, even or uneven numbers. I think Nairobi can adapt a few methods to curb this problem.

By Kathleen Francisca