Greed for land has made smart planning impossible

First, I take this opportunity to pass my sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of those who lost their lives at Naivasha last Sunday.  

The tragedy was avoidable but now that it has happened, we must learn something from it.   

We must use it to interrogate the way we plan our infrastructure and what we need to do to avoid the disasters we experience as a result of poor planning. 

My worst fears are that an accident similar to the one in Karai, Naivasha, will happen soon during the festive period, when more people travel. 

These fears are based on the realisation that the road set-up in Karai resembles that of many areas of our country.

It's clear we don’t learn anything from these accidents. There have been many accidents at Salgaa and other known black spots but we just make noise and quickly forget.  No corrective action ever follows. 

The period immediately after a disaster is followed by much analysis, with many solutions, except the right one, being offered. 

We have failed to embrace smart planning of infrastructure. As a consequence, beautiful shiny roads are built, and then quickly followed with several afterthoughts like speed bumps, new unplanned exits, entries, deceleration lanes, and small, imperceptible signs.

LORESHO TO THE HIGHWAY

It's the same with housing estates. First off, they are barely zoned. They are just built, then infrastructure follows.

Sadly, infrastructure such as drainage systems must be forced to conform to the layout of haphazardly constructed houses. The result is usually unseemly; roads that lead runoff into homes, clogged water pipes, and blocked drainage that often spills putrid effluent all around.

In an ideal situation, smart cities plan for every activity: walkways, sewerage, highways, bridges and footbridges. Stopovers are built where motorists can shop or utilise lavatories.

We could do better for home owners, travellers and roadside vendors if we planned well. Right now, vending and speed bumps go hand in hand. Yet planning must also be coupled with a culture that respects the right of motorists to drive at normal speeds on highways. 

On Thika Highway for example, at every speed bump there are multiple vendors, yet this highway was meant to increase throughput of vehicles and create efficiency.

Adjacent to the road, developers have put up flats virtually all along the road, increasing the risk of accidents from people crossing the eight-lane highway that was meant for vehicles only.

On the Nakuru highway, by Kangemi, vendors display their wares right on the road to the extent that they have completely blocked the access road from Loresho to the highway heading to Naivasha. 

DISASTERS IN WAITING

If, God forbid, something of similar magnitude to the Naivasha tragedy happened in Kangemi, fatalities would be in the hundreds. 

The Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha) and the City County know that places like Kangemi are disasters in waiting but nothing is done and nobody takes responsibility.

On Mombasa Road by Firestone, where eastbound passengers wait for transportation, and in Mlolongo, pedestrians walk aimlessly on a highway where vehicles are speeding. 

A recent crash killed five people simply because the bus stop is not designed for picking up passengers.. 

Lang'ata Road is full of speed bumps that are poorly thought out, without proper signage.  There are several near-misses and screeches on the highway almost on a daily basis.

These speed bumps, as we very well know, are not part of the road design. In most cases they are put up by inexperienced people who have probably never driven a vehicle and do not understand the dynamics of speed.

More often, they are installed after residents complain of many minor accidents, yet it is these residents who have invaded the highway as vendors or pedestrians.

Instead of discouraging vending in risky areas, it often easier to transfer the risk to motorists by building more bumps on the highways. 

ANTAGONISING VOTERS

Once local residents ask for bumps, there is usually no engineering appraisal of the demand. They are immediately given their bumps, whether or not a bump was the logical solution to their complaint.

We are always caught flat-footed even in areas where we can predict disaster, like weather.

This year’s rainfall for example, was within normal range but due to poor drainage, the damage it caused was as severe as that caused by El Niño because drainage systems don’t function. 

The coastal region, which received between 1000mm and 1250mm, faced the worst flooding crisis, yet that was within the normal range. Fatalities in this region were much higher than in any previous period.

We are worse off today than we were in the 1980s because planning has failed us. Greed for land has made the smart planning of major cities impossible.

Leaders in major cities avoid making difficult decisions for fear of antagonising voters, at the expense of deteriorating cities. Leaders also fear confronting powerful landowners, some of whom have connections in very high places.

This contributes to congestions in places like Juja ,where a fast-developing town is served by one tiny bridge.

Advances in the predictive analytics of big data point to the fact that our vulnerabilities to adverse weather or continued heavy traffic jams due to grabbed access roads get worse every year. 

As a result, pedestrians try to share the highways, bringing their wares on pushcarts and contributing to such serious accidents as happened in Naivasha. 

TOO TIMID

In essence, we know what needs to be done but we are too timid to take any action.  This is why we perennially witness catastrophic accidents.  

We urgently need to change gears and dismantle the silo mentality, self-centeredness, fear of untouchable landlords and other sacred cows, and build multi-disciplinary teams of experts in town planning. 

The concept of “smart cities” demands that all types of experts, ranging from engineers and ICT experts to sociologists, work together in pursuit of development and land-use solutions.

Although we have the necessary legislation, enforcement to monitor and control development and ensure all other aspects are taken into consideration, is lacking.

For example, if a road is designated a highway, its use should remain just that, to allow faster vehicular movement and guarantee the security of users.

At the same time, we ought to have standards for highways. If such standards stipulate that highways should not have bumps, them highways should not have bumps.

This is not to disregard the needs of pedestrians, but to require that footbridges be budgeted for as part of the costs of highway construction.  

We are prone to accidents when we try to use the road as a multipurpose platform that often leads to failure in achieving the desired strategic objectives of the city.

On poorly constructed houses, legislation should be changed such that architects and engineers are charged together with the building's owners.

EVERY PIECE OF LAND

The role of government is to regulate and protect consumers but we have failed spectacularly to protect consumers, even in cases where it is obvious that housing structures would collapse. 

It must be noted that many buildings that were earmarked for destruction are still intact.  People live in them, even if we know they could collapse at any time. Developers use sub-standard materials and unqualified personnel. 

There are technologies to monitor and report those who by pass regulatory systems and endanger the lives of many people.

Accidents in Kenya don’t just happen. They are made to happen and we can change this by beginning to plan much more collaboratively.  We each have a responsibility to do the right thing and minimise the loss of Kenyan lives through poor planning. 

The tendency to use every piece of land that touches the road negates the essence of planning. 

We can all play a key role in reviving our cities through use of modern concepts such as smart cities.

The writer is an associate professor at University of Nairobi’s School of Business. Twitter: @bantigito