Posted Monday, April 15 2013 at 20:00
I was fortunate to see the findings of a study titled “Traffic Management and Decongestion in Nairobi Region” funded by Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan.
About 30 per cent of traffic problems within the CBD are caused by driving around looking for parking. Indeed, interviews with commuters found that 76 per cent of them had reported not reaching their destinations because they gave up looking for parking. The parking demand is so high that by 9am, all street parking is full. Indeed the street parking remains full beyond 6pm especially around entertainment spots.
Yet street parking is incredibly cheap for such a busy city with very high parking demand. The most interesting finding for me was that 73 per cent of street parking spaces benefit only 3,050 people who park their vehicles the whole day. The remaining 27 per cent of parking spaces benefit 11,400 people who park their vehicles for short duration. This indicates that the majority of people would like to use the street parking for short duration. However, this is not possible because the street parking is already full by then.
The study, therefore, recommends the provision of multi-storey parking in central locations like Sunken Carpark on Taifa Road and KICC for long duration parking by city workers. The street parking policy and charging system should be amended to cater for short-term, but cheaper hourly charging systems.
DAVID MUTONYI, Manchester, UK
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