Redefining Transport Policy for African Cities

As a citizen of Nairobi, it is a city that despite its many charms can be extremely hard to love. Rapid urbanisation in Nairobi has seen significant growth in the number of vehicles on roads. Today, Nairobi is not only one of the world’s most congested cities, but traffic is also a significant contributor to air pollution and in a city where almost half the population walks to work it has direct impacts on the health of the city’s residents. In addition, Nairobi traffic’s horrendous safety record means that there are, on average, about 7 deaths from the 35 road crashes every day. Beyond health, economically the World Bank estimates that traffic jams cost 50m Kenyan shillings (approx. US$500,000) a day in lost productivity in Kenya’s economic hub. For residents of the city, traffic represents an everyday hazard and annoyance, that cannot effectively be avoided or dealt with, you must just bear it.

This story is not unique to Nairobi, cities across the continent are experiencing explosive growth of their urban populations, which brings with it the challenges of congestion, air pollution, and negative health impacts. Lagos suffers from ‘hellish traffic’, Accra is struggling with traffic congestion and across the continent, air pollution is causing hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year.

So, what can be done? Traditional approaches currently being implemented are not fit for the African context, and the financial cost of building out broad public transport may not be viable for most African governments. African cities need to change their approach to public transport, to one that considers the realities of how we live and move through our cities and uses the innovations and solutions that have been developed. Using this context and experience to develop solutions that work for us. Solutions that create liveable cities for all their citizens, enhancing quality of life, livelihoods, society and the economy.

Reality informing the design of liveable African cities.

The first reality is that in most African cities the majority of people walk, cycle or take public transport. Most of that public transport, such as Matatu’s in Kenya, combi’s in Zimbabwe, Danfos in Nigeria etc.  or the increasingly ubiquitous motorbike taxis are not owned by the government. The chaos and lawlessness of public transport aside, it is generally quite efficient, getting millions of people where they need to be on a daily basis across the continent.

The second reality is that infrastructure is expensive, and urban infrastructure even more so. Beyond that, as the cases of London and New York show, public transport in cities often run at a loss and requires public subsidy. African governments are already taking on massive debts to invest in other infrastructure and don’t have the ability to indefinitely support expensive transit systems.

The third reality is that a primary cause of congestion is private cars, people who drive themselves to work, school, home etc, as African cities grow in their prosperity more people buy cars. Cars need space to move (roads) and sit (parking), but then spend most of their time idle (overnight or while people are at work), cars run on fuel emitting not only carbon but the pollutants that make our cities air near intolerable. Compounding this problem is that most cars on the continent are second hand imported from Japan, Asia and Europe while they are cheaper for consumers they are usually not in line with latest emissions and safety regulations in those markets. Continuing to design our cities around cars will only continue to prove the old urban planning idiom if you build more roads you get more cars, an experience that urbanites from around the continent can attest to.

What we need to do is build our cities around being liveable. Liveable like my definition of development is holistic, the world liveable means worth living, enjoyable and in the context of cities it refers to urban quality of life. A liveable city isn’t just an economic entity where people can earn a living it is also a place where people enjoy a decent standard of living. That means a city that is designed and governed around the needs for those who live in it, those needs include jobs but also a clean and healthy living environment, security, affordable housing, accessible public services, and mobility. Mobility isn’t just an aspect of a liveable city it is a key enabler of all the other aspects of a liveable city (you can’t have a clean environment without controlling pollution from transport). Thus, for African cities to be more liveable we need to design and govern transport services that cater to all by providing solutions that enable affordable, clean efficient modes of transport to all sections of society. With the realities briefly described above, this brings certain solutions to mind

1-   Build for pedestrians and cyclists

If a significant majority of people walk and cycle to their destinations it is inconceivable that we do not build infrastructure to cater to and encourage pedestrians and cyclists. Rather than focus on super-highways and roads for people with cars (who tend to be higher up the socioeconomic ladder) we should focus on the vast majority of our citizens. A disturbing number of road deaths around the continent are those of pedestrians and that is in large part because we design our transport infrastructure around cars and not people. Meaning that our sidewalks, footbridges, cycle lanes, footpaths, road crossings etc. are inadequate in number, where they do exist, they are badly designed and the mentality that vehicles take priority means that many drivers do not understand or care to consider pedestrians. Rather than spending billions on new urban roads and highways let us first spend it on infrastructure for people.

2-   Build on what we have

As mentioned earlier most African cities all have some form of private enterprise (busses and motorbikes) that have filled the space that governments vacated. For instance, Nairobi’s Matatu’s have developed a network that is as extensive as any of the planned public systems. Furthermore, because of the competitive nature of the system, they have had to remain relevantly affordable to their client base. There is no need to get rid of functioning system, rather policy should focus on cleaning up the chaos and illegality in the system, protecting consumers and other road users, while allowing these enterprises to grow and continue to move people around.

3-   Get cars off the road

Cars are the primary cause of congestion and pollution; thus, the solution is clear, policy and urban design should be aimed at getting those cars off the road. A straightforward way to do this is via tax, making it more expensive to drive a car in a city. Around the world, cities have imposed congestion taxes or carbon taxes. However, these are expensive to implement and track as it requires putting in place systems and processes that can track individual cars into and out of cities. A simpler solution is taxing public and private parking. Nottingham in the UK has implemented parking levy’s where private companies are charged for the parking spots their employees use. This is much easier to administrate than trying to track and tax individual car owners. More than that the impacts on the city have been positive, the money raised from the levy has been invested in improving public transport, carbon dioxide emissions have fallen by a quarter and streets that were previously clogged up are freer because fewer people drive to work.

4-   Allow non-car solutions

If you are going to tax private car users off the road, you need to give them alternative options, you need to allow innovators and entrepreneurs to develop solutions that people who may not want to take current forms of public transport and can afford something more expensive to take. This is already happening with applications like uber operating around the continent, competing against other international and local companies offering transport solutions in African cities. The Egyptian app SWVL and others offer ride-hailing services for busses. Through technology and business, the choice is no longer limited to crazy matatu or your own car, but there are options for different consumers at different price points.

Mobility for liveability

Simply put the policy solutions presented above follow a quite simple formula: fewer cars results in less pollution and congestion. Combined with investments in people-focused infrastructure, and allowing for private innovation in public transport, moving through African cities could be viable and affordable for everyone. Doing so without extensive public expenditure or severely disrupting existing industries is a significant plus.

As African cities grow, we must consider and improve their liveability. Transport is a crucial element of a liveable city. Enabling everyone, of all socioeconomic classes to move throughout the city efficiently, affordably and cleanly will improve the health, sanity and economy of African cities. For those who have to bear the exhausting and infuriating congestion that is a daily part of life in too many African cities, a novel approach to transport in African cities cannot come soon enough.