A Standard commentary argues that Nairobi should spend its transport money above ground before it starts dreaming about an underground railway.
What the city already has
Nairobi already runs a mass transit system. It is the matatu network, carrying most of the city on routes it organised itself, plus a commuter rail service on the old metre gauge line that includes stops serving Kibra and Lang’ata. Bus rapid transit corridors have been announced, part built and repeatedly relaunched without full service arriving.
The argument in the commentary is a familiar one in transport planning. The cheapest capacity is usually the capacity you already own but run badly.
The Kibra angle
Most journeys in this ward begin on foot. People walk to Industrial Area, to Ngong Road, to the market and to school, and they take a matatu when there is money or when it rains. Fares move with the weather and with fuel prices, and the walking routes flood, go dark at night and lose their footbridges to disrepair.
Nothing about a tunnel changes that. More commuter trains in the morning peak, decent lighting, drainage and safe crossings on the routes out of the ward would reach far more residents for far less money.
What we are watching
Whether any underground proposal appears as a funded line in the county or national transport budget rather than as a concept drawing, what happens to commuter rail frequency and fares on the lines that serve Kibra, and whether the bus corridors already built are ever put into daily service.
KNN will keep asking the county what the walking routes out of Kibra are budgeted at, because that is the number that matters here.
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Source: standardmedia.co.ke
