Matatu CBD Ban Looming as Badi Makes Breakthrough

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Matatus at traffic snarl-up along Waiyaki Way in Nairobi
Kenyans.co.ke

Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Director-General Mohamed Badi revisited the plans to ban matatu from CBD after making breakthroughs with the construction of several termini in the city. 

Badi has on multiple occasions postponed the plan to relocate PSVs as he was racing against time to complete the termini and also convince matatu operators and boda boda riders to comply. 

Badi is expected to launch the Green Park terminus near Kenya Railways in early March 2021 after touring the site along with other senior government officials on Thursday, February 25. 

"Major Badi and a team of top government personnel toured the facility today and were impressed with the work done. The park is 99 complete and can be opened in late February 2021 or the first weeks of March 2021. 

An image of a bus terminus
The Green Park terminus under construction at the Railways club along Haile Selassie Avenue.
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"We have completed most of the major work and we are only waiting to do the finishing touches,"  an engineer at the site said. 

NMS unveiled a dispensary at the terminus along Haile Selassie Avenue, Nairobi. The agency equipped it with additional medical equipment and beds which would be used for emergency cases at the terminus. 

Badi said that he would also build a supermarket and a hotel at the bus station. 

The Kenya Airforce officer had earlier disclosed that the project stalled owing to the delays in completion of the terminus which will serve matatus plying Ngong Road and Lang'ata Road.

Other termini include Fig Tree Terminus at Ngara, Bunyala and Workshop Road, Muthurwa Terminus and a proposed terminus at Globe Cinema Roundabout. 

NMS plans to offer its alternative buses, or use taxis and boda bodas to ferry customers within CBD. 

It unveiled a mobile app meant to restrict the flow of matatus in the CBD. The app will only allow a handful of matatus into the CBD in a bid to reduce congestion in various pickup points.

Matatu Welfare Association (MWA) chairperson Dickson Mbugua, however, said that they had not been consulted before the project kicked off. Mbugua said that Badi should have barred private cars as opposed to matatus. He asked NMS to increase the parking fees from Ksh 200 to Ksh 400 to discourage private motorists from parking or driving their vehicles to CBD.

Several cases were also filed against the project by other transport stakeholders who are calling for further dialogue. 

Matatus caught up in a traffic snarl-up at Tom Mboya street near Khoja/Old Mutual terminus
Matatus caught up in a traffic snarl-up at Tom Mboya street near Khoja/Old Mutual terminus in May 2020.
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Ma3Route