Government sets aside Sh1billion for BRT station
The government has allocated Sh1.17 billion to finance the implementation of the Nairobi bus rapid transport (BRT) project in the financial year starting July.
In its expenditure plan for the new fiscal year, the National Treasury said i will provide Sh1.05 billion while the balance will be footed through foreign financing.
Nairobi Metropolitan Area Authority has gazetted twelve mobility corridors, seven of them for core mass rapid transportation linking Limuru, Ngong Town, Kenol, Murang’a, Kiambu, Ruai, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), and Konza techno city.
The remaining five comprise rapid transport corridors along Line 2, which have been contracted, and works on them will begin soon.
Line 1 is to run from James Gichuru Road/Waiyaki Way to JKIA – a distance of 20 kilometres, while Line 2, which is 31 kilometres long, will run from Lang’ata Road to Ngong Road as well as Juja Road and Komarock Road to Ruiru. It will have major stops at Dandora, Kariobangi, and near Gikomba market.
Line 3 will run from Githurai through Thika Road to Moi Avenue in the CBD and terminate at Kenyatta National Hospital. Line 4 will cover 14 kilometres from T-Mall to Jogoo Road while Line 5 will cover Outer Ring Road.
Priority corridors are the JKIA to Likoni, James Gichuru-Rironi, and Bomas to Ruiru roads.
The 27-kilometre Kasarani-Kenyatta National Hospital line that is expected to be operational by June is part of the second corridor that runs from Kenol to Rongai.
NMS has announced plans to convert the famous Nairobi Railways bus station into a Bus Rapid Transport terminus.
The station, according to NMS deputy director of transport administration Martin Eshiwani, will be used as picking up and dropping off point for passengers heading to and coming from the Green Park terminus.
“We want to use the space outside Railways Central station for BRT. We want vehicles to drop people who will be using the train or pick up people who have arrived by train to the Green Park terminus,” he said last Friday.
Already a section of the railway’s bus station has been sealed off using iron sheets as construction work is underway.
Eshiwani said the matatus that have been using the terminus will be moved but failed to state where they will be relocated to.
“For that reason, therefore, all public service vehicles which have been operating from railways terminus will be moved to allow for its development,” he added.
