Kenya: Nairobi ‘s 27.1 Kilo Meter Expressway Kick Started for July 2020 and Scheduled to end in December 2022
By Abdul Rahman Bangura–
NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Freetown, Sierra Leone- Introductory works on Nairobi Expressway have begun on the main construction recreations on the 27.1 Km project are scheduled for July 2020 with December 2022 being slated for actualization date.
The Expressway starts at Mlolongo to JKIA, Nairobi’s CBD and ends at Westlands along Waiyaki Way. According to the Kenya National Highways Authority( KeNHA) Director-General, Engineer Peter Mundinia, this project is a public-private partnership(PPP). The road project was inaugurated by President Uhuru Kenyatta in October 2019.
” We are not going to interfere with Uhuru Park and therefore there should be no concerns from the public. There is enough land to accommodate the road project,” Eng Mundinia stated.
According to Engineer Mundinia, this road project is unique in Africa due to the Private Public Partnership agreement with much of the materials, labor and experienced aptitude being sourced locally.
The new highway, passing through Kenya’s crowded capital – Nairobi, has been postponed for nearly a decade, but the construction has now started. The project is a key development project as it will curtail traffic tangle in the city.
The passage will have two traffic lanes in either direction and will caption ten interactions, with a substantial percentage of the expressway being heightened.
Sections of the Expressway will feature eight, six, and four boulevards established on a specified traffic. Its fundamental purpose is to decongest Nairobi Metropolitan by giving faster, reliable, and less expensive transport.
According to the Official Twitter handle for the President’s Delivery Unit(PDU), project investors will salvage their expenses through reasonable pay-as-you-use fees at appointed toll stations. The Expressway is anticipated to attend to, at least 25,000 automobiles per day with user required to pay KSh 600 per day to use the road.
The roads will allow through traffic to use the expressway rather than having to pass through the city’s persistent congestion.
Construction is being carried out by the Chinese contractor – China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) under the PPP model. An important feature of the new expressway will be the affectionate bus rapid transit (BRT) facilities, which will also enable to boost public transport to the city.
Designing work on the expressway is endless, despite a request pending in court where two activists are exhorting for the project to be halted. They say the design, negotiations, and planning were done privately.
They cite some of the properties to be affected as NextGen Mall, Khalsa Primary School, sections of the Railways Club and a plot for Persons with Disabilities in Westlands.
For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports, Africa Correspondent
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