Challenges facing road projects in Kenya

Question:

Discuss about the Techniques in Bioproductivity and Photosynthesis.

The presence of road network that is good and well-functioning is very critical for the growth of an economy, reduction of poverty, and creation of employment and wealth. Hence the Ministry of roads will play a significant role in achieving the goals of Kenya vision 2030 with the establishment of basic facilities of infrastructure to the public by developing, rehabilitating, maintaining, and also managing the road networks in the Thika highway of Nairobi city. The highest priority has been given to the infrastructure for making sure that the main projects of the road are implemented under the economic pillar.

As per Ahlberg, Nilson & Walsh, there is a need for the implementation of the conceptual design phase of system engineering for improving the roads to a motorable condition (Ahlberg, Nilson & Walsh, 2016). This is due to the reason that most of the road transportation carries the cargoes and passenger in the country which is creating a lot of traffic issues. In socio-economic development of the country, the importance of roads is high due to which in the recent past the government has increased the allocation of budget steadily for this conceptual designing. However, in Kenya, the road projects are facing a number of challenges in which delay in completion of roads, overruns of cost, demolition of the abortive, business or residential areas are included as shown.

A reasonably well-developed construction industry can be seen in Kenya along with some of the key local companies of construction which are having the ability in competing with the international organizations in the contracts ranging 10 to 20 million US dollars. Most of the equipment that is required for plant and construction can be sourced from the open market. In the roads department, the designing branch will take the responsibility of conducting the survey, designing the plan and documentation of tender for the projects related to the road. The preliminary designing of the road includes taking the responsibility of standard and manual designs and the materials that are related to the road reserves and control of the access (Buede & Miller, 2016). The engineering designs that are basic will be standardized by following the field testing and the long-standing research. The design studies that are financed domestically are executed normally by the local consultants who are found to be capable in handling most of the projects related to road engineering.   

The construction industry in Kenya

The project that is proposed is designed for removing the bottlenecks of transport alongside the Nairobi-Thika highway which is considered to be one of the three major corridors of transport within the metropolitan area of Nairobi. The recurrent congestion of traffic is also addressed in the project in some of the sections of the central business district and the access that is limited to the public transportation, and promoting the participation of private sector in the road infrastructure (Coombs, Hall & Long, 2014).

Many geometric designs as an alternative has been designed even for the control of traffic and the strategies of management have been evaluated by the firm of design consulting. The option that is selected is the dual carriageway highway that is accessed limitedly with four lanes on each side (Dasgupta & Michalewicz, 2013). The interchanging of traffic at the roundabouts, that is existing and recurrent frontage service of roads for the local traffic has been found to be economically and technically one of the most satisfactory solutions. However, for the project, the engineering design in detail has been reviewed and is found to be appropriate.

The design of the project has taken into account the lessons that were learned from the past interventions in the transport sector. In the past, there were interventions from the implementation of the bank on the projects of transport which have been characterized by the long delay in the startup, poor management of the project, lack of counterpart funding from locals, poor reporting along with poor auditing (Freeman, et al., 2014). The importance is given to the Nairobi-Thika highway and its geometric traits in addition to the high level of traffic there is a substantial scope for the participation of the private sector of post-construction. The project will be funding the consultancy services for investigating the process and do the regular follow-ups.

In the Nairobi metropolitan are the public transport system will be operating in the environment that is totally deregulated and is dominated largely by the small seater busses which can accommodate 14 members. It is accounting more than 80 percent of the market followed by the bus service of Kenya. By 2025 the demand for public transport will be increasing from 1.8 million daily at present to 2.9 million trips (Greenberg, 2015). So with the future demands, the development of infrastructures such as widening and the development of additional lanes, construction of the bypasses or the new roads will not be providing n enough capacity. Hence, it urgently requires developing a conceptual design and to formulate a wide-ranging public transportation system with the increased capacity and model of choices.

Proposed project for removing transportation bottlenecks on Nairobi-Thika highway

In this section for the project, the design formulation for mitigating the before mentioned impacts that are brought because of widening and construction of the road are discussed. From all the different concepts of conceptual road designing, only one was selected as the alternative method for the purpose of implementation (Harrison, et al., 2015). The authority that is involved in the implementing system is the ministry of roads which is involved in the construction and also the expansion of the Thika road highway. This project can also be the basis for the expansion of road in future within the built-up areas.

On the adjacent land uses the impacts of the expansion of road has been done between the months of September and April in the years 2009 to 2010. From the research, it has been found out that the activities of the economy that was carried out alongside the road have suffered because of the problems of inaccessibility that are in association with expansion and construction of Thika highway (Hsu, Lander & Zhang, 2014).  Some of the business has been closed while few suffered from the low returns of an economy. Hence the key intervention is to create the connection between the adjacent uses of land and road. The analysis of site has been done by taking into account the conditions that are existing and the different land uses that are in front of the main highway (Kelly, Lesh & Baek, 2014).

This will be outlining the different new elements and the designs that are to be implemented with the help of this project. In this service lane, sidewalks, bus station, directional signpost, crossing points, buffer, and pedestrian lighting are introduced (Klir, 2013). All this will be placed alongside the roadway section of Thika highway which is having a number of economic activities in progress (Shackelford, et al., 2016).

On the program of development, the conceptual design has its own basis in which delineating the project, the accrual designing of the new junctions, size, policies, and service lance are involved. With the help of the flow of traffic, the functional diagrams of project designs are showing the temporal traffic flow at the location site (Rade & Westergren, 2013). At the preliminary stage, the best alternative for the service lane type and suitable junctions are picked up which can be refined further in terms of details.

This stage will form the basis for the analysis and its interpretation for informing the different concepts of design which will be reflecting the objectives that can be visualized against the constraints and simultaneously they even propose the possible solutions (Ran, et al., 2013).

Mitigating impacts of road expansion on adjacent land uses

This part of the project proposal suggests that the area of the study has been left the way it is. The consequences of this alternative are known to be the present negative influences the expansion of road might have had on the adjacent use of land to it ( as shown in Figure 3). The impacts of the nil intervention are outlined.

For the project to be successful it will be requiring the participation of the community and it can be validated by constant mechanisms of evaluation and monitoring. This is to be done for making sure of the outputs that are expected have been realized. Monitoring is considered to be the important part of the process of planning (Shackelford, et al., 2016). The overall progress of the project is to be monitored and the has to be validated by providing continuous feedback since it is necessary as it gives the measurement for the base of the success of the plans that have been optimized for the project.

In the evaluation of the development project for being successful, a well-defined organizational structure should be implied which will be having a particular position and specific lines of communication to the other related sectors of the firm (Stefanescu, 2015). One can make sure regarding the success of the project by delivering the programs for training and the forums of road user sensitization. The ministry of roads, the city council of Nairobi, the stakeholders, the contractors, and the road users will be the major ones in the management and in the monitoring level for the project success as shown in figure 4(Yin, et al., 2013).

The deviation routes that are wide are to be provided for catering the huge traffic. The interchanges that are clear are to be constructed to make the entry and exit of the highway easy. The deviations that are used during the period of construction of highway enough water has to be sprinkled for reducing the air pollution level. By introducing the service lanes which has to be linked between the main highway and to the adjacent land uses for operations to be carried out smoothly the facilities of road services should be accessible. The appropriate procedure has to be followed while demolishing the premises of the business or any other property on the side of road reserve has to be followed and correct compensation should be given. A business that has been impacted negatively during the construction process of the road has to be compensated.

Community participation, evaluation, and monitoring for project success

Conclusion

The expansion of road and its construction mainly in the urban settings will definably have the negative impacts towards the adjacent users of land. By this project, a scenario has been advocated where the construction of roads should not be carried out in isolation to the kind of effects it will be having on the adjacent uses of land. Therefore a concept of integrating the design of road with the adjacent land uses has been brought by the project as the means of eliminating the adverse effects of the expansion of road that has on the land use alongside the road.

While designing the project for road construction and expansion the interests of the roadside landowners and other related parties such as road users, traders, etc. are taken into consideration. The proposals that are made in this project actually meant to lessen the issues of negative impacts on the expansion of road and the construction it is having on the adjacent land uses. In the industry, the team has to embrace the planning that is general in terms of road construction whether in rural or urban settings for minimizing the negative impacts that are accompanying such undertakings. The implementation of the design that is proposed will be opening the possibilities of its replication somewhere.

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