Hasten dualling of key highway to end snarl-ups

The perennial gridlock and chaos on the roads in the run-up to the Christmas and New Year festivities is playing out again. The spectacle of a clogged Nairobi-Nakuru highway, with motorists and their passengers spending many hours on the road, smacks of backwardness.

As this happened on the same highway last year and the year before, one would have expected traffic police and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to have learnt some lessons on how to deal with this problem.

However, from Friday, motorists and their passengers spent the night in the cold in a traffic jam that stretched for many kilometres on the same highway. It was only unlocked yesterday morning.

President William Ruto’s announcement that the dualling of this highway will begin early next year is, therefore, good news, indeed. What might dampen the people’s spirits a bit is the fact that it may not be done and dusted yet as the government is seeking an investor for the project.

It is part of the development of the Northern Corridor, which serves East and Central Africa. The dual carriageway will eventually be extended to the Kenya-Uganda border town of Malaba in Busia County.

Traffic congestion on the Nairobi-Nakuru-Malaba highway has become a nightmare, with motorists often spending many hours on the road. This is why local leaders are also appealing to the government to expand it into a dual carriage to ease cargo and passenger transportation

The government is seeking a new public-private partnership for the Sh180 billion project after an agreement with a consortium of French companies failed to take off.

Other key projects such as the extension of the standard gauge railway from Naivasha to Malaba should also be expedited.

Easing cargo and passenger transportation is something the government should prioritise for national development.