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Arusha Becoming a City of Pedestriansby lute wa lutengano Time is 8 a.m. After a rushed breakfast you hope into your contraption, a ramshackle of a car. It is time to rush to your office, located downtown Arusha. You live in Njiro. You enter the main Njiro road and you are sure to be in office, near the Arusha International Conference Centre, in not more than 20 minutes time. But as you drive past ESAMI junction, and as you are about to arrive near the Nanenane grounds, you suddenly realise that your trip to your office will, if all goes well, take at least 40 minutes. Vehicles driving from Njiro area to town are moving at a snail’s speed. The traffic jam happens to stretch all the way from the Nanenane grounds to the Impala Hotel roundabout. From there, there is another, bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, along Old Moshi road, all the way to the Clock Tower roundabout. In all, the trip, which otherwise could have taken 15 minutes, lasts for about 50 minutes. You arrive in office a bit late. But you are surprised to find the office almost empty. As your colleagues arrive they narrate to you their harrowing experience, that morning, on the road from the respective homes to office. One who stays in Ngarenaro says he has spent about one hour on the road, in a packed Matatu mini bus, on the stretch from Shoprite to the Clock Tower roundabout, along Uhuru road. The Sakina colleague has a similar experience. He talks of serious traffic jam between Technical College and Sanawari area. The Kimandolu colleague has a nasty experience between Phillips and Sanawari. He says the alternative route via the Impala Hotel roundabout is worse because of the traffic jam already explained above. That is when it dawns upon you that Arusha is headed for a major traffic jam crisis. You recall the other day how you spent almost half an hour during the lunch hour rush just to cover the Boma road stretch, from the Regional Commissioner’s office to the Clock Tower roundabout. It seems that the whole road traffic system collapses during the morning, lunch and evening rush hours. But what makes matters worse is the fact that more cars are presently arriving in Arusha. The hundreds of staff of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the East African Community, ESAMI, the Commonwealth Health Secretariat and the Pan African Postal Union, are importing vehicles to facilitate their movement in Arusha. Then we have the thousands of businessmen in the tourism, agricultural and mining industries – all these need and have vehicles for their business. Then there are vehicles which ferry the hundreds of thousands of tourists and conference delegates visiting Arusha every year, over and above the notorious matatus and taxis. All these fight for space on the Arusha roads. I believe our municipal fathers are not blind to this sad
reality. I also believe that they will not sit around and wait for the day when
Arusha will grind to halt. I dread to think of that day, because then Arusha
will become a city of pedestrians. The current trend seems to point to that
direction.
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