City Hall forms team to decongest Nairobi

Nairobi County has set up a new committee to oversee decongestion of the city until a government-led metropolitan authority is set up.

County Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke on Tuesday announced that a committee representing the National Transport and Safety Authority, the Matatu Owners Association and the Matatu Welfare Association will handle the decongestion process until another team from the ministry comes in.

“We have agreed to form a committee with all stakeholders from next week which will come up with decongesting the city before the Nairobi Metropolitan Transport Authority (NaMETA) comes in,” Mr Mueke said.

Mr Mueke said the new committee will be responsible for implementing all the proposals developed by the county in efforts to decongest the city including introducing a mass rapid transport system to replace the low-capacity vehicles.

It will also identify spaces outside the CBD to act as holding areas for matatus, which will only be allowed to operate two vehicles at a time to enter the CBD to pick up and drop off clients.

READ: Kidero cancels matatu parking licenses

Mr Mueke said Muthurwa market, the Globe roundabout and Ngara were some of the areas pinpointed to hold the buses outside the city.

This will end unnecessary stopping for matatus in the city as vehicles are to move from one end of the city to the next, picking up and dropping off passengers.

UPCOUNTRY
The county is also supposed to set up infrastructure at another terminus outside the city that will ensure vehicles coming from upcountry do not enter the central business district.

The county, which wants to push out low-capacity matatus to the fringes of the city centre, sparked conflict last week when Governor Evans Kidero cancelled all parking permits within the city.

Mr Mueke also insisted that the county would stick to the move to verify parking permits in a bid to rid the city of those operating with fake documents.

Transport Permanent Secretary Wilson Irungu, who is in China, told the Nation through his communication adviser that the process of setting up NaMETA is under way.

NaMETA, whose functions will include licensing operators and drivers, finances, miscellaneous provisions and schedules, will also oversee a multibillion-shilling transport modernization project that has been a cause of scandals at City Hall involving Chinese and Japanese companies angling for tenders to supply the high-capacity buses.

In 2014, Dr Kidero signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chinese Company Foton Motor for the supply of 260 buses with the capacity to carry 100 passengers.

During a visit to Japan last year, Dr Kidero said he would sign a deal to adopt the Yurikamome Mass Transit Automated Guideway Train system that is fully automated and transports about 170,000 passengers every day and runs 16 hours each day.

The buses are part of the Sh400 billion transport master plan to be implemented in the five counties to get Nairobi out of the current chaos and connect it to the satellite towns using a state-of-the-art mass transport system.

The plan, to be executed under the Vision 2030 development blueprint, involves building a 167km exclusive public road and rail transport linking the capital with neighbouring Kikuyu, Thika, Ruiru, Athi River, Kitengela, Machakos, Limuru and Kajiado towns.

This comes even as the one-year term of NaMATA's steering committee expired on March 1, although Mr Irungu said its tenure would run until December this year.