Outering road construction to drag up to September 2017

Construction of Outer Ring Road by China Wu Yi Company is expected to be completed in September 2017. [Photo: Jonah Onyango/Standard]

A section of Nairobi residents will have to bear with traffic snarl ups up to September 2017 due to delayed completion of the 64-kilometre Outering road project by two and a half months.

Chairman of the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), Daniel Njora defended the delay in implementation of the project saying that relocation of services such as water, sewer and power lines was a major setback.

"Initially when the project commenced, we were moving slowly because we had to relocate the services but now the relocation is at 90 percent thus we are moving smoothly," said Njora.

He added that the project was now moving at a progress of four percent per month compared to one percent when it began. According to the chairman, the road has already used a whooping Sh7.3 billion and is expected to have cost a total of Sh8.2 billion upon completion.

"It currently takes two to three hours to get to the southern bypass from Thika road but once the road is complete, it will only take 10 minutes," Njora added.

Njora said that issue of land compensation was a big obstacle to the progress of the project but cited that the matter has already been addressed. He however said that more compensation would have to be done because the design of the road keeps changing.

Director General of KURA, Silas Kinoti, said that the completion of the road from the General Service Unit to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport would not only be an economic booster, but also eliminate traffic congestion in the Central Business District.

"The road is not only expected to ease up congestion in the CBD but it is also going to see the opening up of markets, clinics and a children's park. This is the first major government project to decongest Nairobi and we are amused by its progress," said Kinoti.

He said that Public transport vehicles would only operate on service lanes thus the main road will be void of traffic consequently cutting down on travel costs. The road will also be fitted with non-motorized means of transport such as foot paths and bridges for pedestrians.

Kinoti revealed plans to expand Juja and Jogoo roads were in the pipeline and would be actualised as soon as the outering road project was complete.

Other decongestion projects include, Waiyaki way to red hill, introducing a link from Lang'ata road and the current works going on Ngong road. There are also plans to make Juja road a massive rapid transport carriage way.