Nairobi needs clear rules around shared spaces

What you need to know:

  • Pavements should be for pedestrians to walk on but instead you have cars parked on them all day.
  • Where pavements are not protected by bollards, matatus drive on them, forcing pedestrians onto the road.
  • All the businesses that have mushroomed should be orderly and neat. They should be beneficial and serve a social good.

Recently, a video was posted online that shows Polycarp Igathe, the Deputy Governor of Nairobi, addressing brewers of illicit alcohol in Mathare, asking them to reduce production.

They do their business on a river bank and he mentions that a new road would soon be built there. Would they give way to a new road or coexist with it?

Shared space is one problem that Nairobi and other fast-growing towns and cities are going to have to address.

Across town from Mathare is Yaya Centre. Near it, on both sides of Cotton Avenue, between the mall and the curvy, new arch-shaped FCB Mirhab Tower is a very busy stretch with myriad businesses.

There are bus stops and bus parking and car washes, repair yards, taxi parking and outdoors restaurants under umbrellas, all busily at work.

Pavements should be for pedestrians to walk on but instead you have cars parked on them all day. In other places, crews installing fibre optic cables or repairing water pipes under the pavements have neglected to restore them.

Where pavements are not protected by bollards, matatus drive on them, forcing pedestrians onto the road. Also, hawkers are back on many pavement spaces in Nairobi’s Central Business District.

In all four directions around Yaya and Prestige malls are busy bus stops which can lead to traffic congestion. The problem is not their presence, but rather the way matatus and buses park, blocking off shop entrances to prevent other, competing buses from stopping to pick up passengers. 

On nearby Wood Avenue, there is a new building that has just been completed, with two vehicle entrance ramps, and there are electricity poles on both ramps. Yes, a utility competes with a road.

ROUGH AND UNEVEN

This is repeated around Kilimani, where residential spaces are facing intrusion from nightclubs and construction sites. Next to Upper Hill, Madaraka residents complain about vibrations from night construction that may damage their homes.

Wood Avenue is permanently rough and uneven; the endless procession of construction lorries probably prevents any road authority from doing serious repairs.

Old zoning regulations in Nairobi have been collapsed to accommodate the expanding numbers of consumers and residents with high-rise towers.

The exact population of Nairobi is not known. The former Nairobi province had 3.1 million in the 2009 census, while in the 2017 election Nairobi County had 2.2 million registered voters.

But Nairobi is a diurnal city, my friend Wallace Kantai says, which means there is a movement of population into Nairobi during the day.

Therefore, neighbouring counties like Kiambu with 1.1 million voters, Machakos with 620,000 and Kajiado with 411,000 voters likely have a great number of their residents spending the day in Nairobi

We need to better align the use of space, service delivery and tax collection for these spaces, in a way that is efficient and respects the rights of the greatest number of citizens.

New rules are needed to govern the sharing of spaces. Traffic marshals at bus stops and roundabouts are needed to free up policemen for security duties. 

CITY COUNCIL VAN

All the businesses that have mushroomed should be orderly and neat. They should be beneficial and serve a social good. They should also blend into the environment and not disrupt other road users, so violations like taxis parking on pedestrian pavements are not acceptable

Most of all, businesses should be taxable, and in a meaningful way. There is a price for sharing urban spaces.

Many years ago, I had to go and rescue someone who had been mistakenly picked up by a city council van in one morning sweep. He finally surfaced in court in the afternoon with about 100 hawkers who had also been arrested.

When the judge read their names, they all pleaded guilty, got fined Sh500, went to pay their fines and were gone in ten minutes.

That Sh500 does not amount to much when you consider the amount of government resources deployed, but it was a whole day of ruined business for a hawker and probably a loss of stock.

Can this hawker’s fine be replaced by a hawking license? One that ends all harassment of hawkers?

Honestly, the customer who buys clothes from a hawker or a chapati from a vendor outside Yaya Centre is unlikely to be a customer who might buy clothing or a meal inside the mall.

Same with the alcohol brewers on the river bank.

Twitter: @bankelele