Many African capitals are synonymous with heavy traffic. The resultant losses in man hours and lost business often runs into millions of dollars. We focus on this problem and their possible solutions
ACCRA – GHANA
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CCTV’s Katerina Vittozi takes a look at Ghana’s Accra roads and gives us a feel of how frustrating it is to move from one end of the city to another during rush hour
There are more than 600,000 registered cars on Accra’s roads – a figure Ghana’s urban roads department estimate will increase five-fold over the next 20 years. To help ease congestion there are plans for a new intelligent traffic light system. As well as a project to improve the capital’s bus network. The combined cost: 230 million dollars
CAIRO, EGYPT
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Like in other Capitals, Cairo is no exception when it comes to traffic. Violation of traffic regulations, has contributed to congestion on the roads in the city. As is the case in the developing world, the rehabilitation and expansion of the road network can hardly cope with the rising numbers of vehicular traffic.
Egypt’s armed forces have also moved in to help in roads expansions to help ease traffic within the capital. The army is digging into its own budget to finance development of the road network. This has led to the paving and widening of some 510 Kilometres of road network as well as construction of 33 pedestrian and vehicles bridges. They are also considering That’s just half of the Army’s plan.
But even as the government strives to ease traffic through these measures, parts of Cairo are clogged with traffic simply because of bad mannerisms by road users. When traffic is heavy, motorists overlap, blocking fellow motorists in the process. Many don’t drive in their lanes and the result; more cars than the routes can handle. But again, the problem goes beyond ill-behaved motorists.
The problem seems to be deeper and may not be resolved through these ambitious constructions, but through the re-engineering of the mind-sets of not just the motorists, but also pedestrians too.
NAIROBI, KENYA
Nairobi, the economic hub of the East African powerhouse-Kenya, has also experienced its fair share of traffic jams. As Robert Nagila found out, the traffic may even start from the airport.
