Grabbed pavements and walkways turn city into living hell for pedestrians

The fenced off­ pavement outside the KRA offices at Times Tower, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Being a pedestrian in Nairobi has increasingly become a very painful and risky status.

From shrinking open spaces, worn out and neglected walkways to grabbed or misused pavements, it is not easy being a pedestrian in this city.

If jutting paving slabs do not break your leg, open manholes will do the trick. Uneven or odd shaped paving slabs will trip you, infirm slabs resting on water will splash you with dirt if you step on them or your feet will get stuck in mud where slabs are missing.

We will not talk about open sewers spilling into the pavements and seeping underneath the weak slabs. That is a foul discussion.

In some neighborhoods, road pavements have been transformed into parking lots for long-distance trucks while garages and other types of merchants have encroached on others. Pedestrian paths are the new speeding lanes for boda bodas.

Exclusive use

Along Dennis Pritt Road, a Very Important Person (VIP) has blocked one of the roads close to State House’s Gate D for their exclusive use. Besides being an eyesore, the concrete blockades of the road are a lurking danger to motorists and joggers who exercise in the area.

The confusion in the estates has been transported into the city centre, thanks to runaway impunity, possible corruption at City Hall and complacency of Nairobi residents who look the other way rather than get entangled.

At Tumbo Avenue that links Harambee Avenue and Haile Selassie, two state institutions have conspired to constrict the Nairobi pedestrian to walk right in the middle of the road alongside vehicles.

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has cordoned off the imposing Times Towers all round so that one can never step on the pavements around it. On the opposite side, Treasury and Central Bank of Kenya have similarly roped their pavements with metal bars.

Pedestrians walking to either pick or post letters at City Square or to visit the Huduma Centre there have to share the road with motorists.

“I recently missed being hit by a vehicle coming from behind while I was leaving City Square... it’s a brazen disregard for the pedestrian. The wall and windows at Times Tower are so high that there is negligible security risk if we were allowed to walk near it,” said a pedestrian.

In some streets like Banda Street near Jamia Mosque, pubs take over the pavements in the evenings, especially on Fridays, forcing their drunken revellers to walk right in the middle of the road in their drunken stupors.

Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street and Ronald Ngala are a total mess in so far as pedestrian pavements are concerned. Here, pedestrian rights is a rumor, as hawkers, handcart pushers, boda bodas and matatus take over the pavements.

The situation gets thicker as you go deeper into River Road areas.

“Dear Nairobi business people, please hire taller people to hang your billboards, we can’t be walking the corridors and pavements bending especially in this rainy season,” Ken Kibera complained on Twitter on October 28, 2018.

A study by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) revealed that in the central part of Nairobi, the space allocated to streets and pavements is only about 12 per cent of the total land area, less than half of the estimated 30 per cent required to support a functioning traffic system in a modern capital.

Reached for comment, Nairobi City County Engineer Moses Kuiyaki said the cordoning off of government institutions is a national security affair.

“However, that should not endanger pedestrians’ lives because this leaves them to walk on roads,” he added.

County Transport Engineer Samson Kigen said they have received complaints about the pavements and all permits for businesses operating on the pavements such as hotels and booksellers will not renewed this year.

“Also, all the parking lots on Muindi Mbingu Street all the way to the footbridge at the University of Nairobi will be done away with to give pedestrians more room. We also plan to expand walkways like Aga Khan Walk and Mama Ngina Street by closing Standard Street,” said Kigen.