We’re Jamming

The words, “too many cars and very few roads,” are on everyone’s language these days. Yet, traffic jam solution and creating parking centers in the capital city will become a reality one day. If the care-taker AA Administration lays the foundation for tackling these twin problems in a more aggressive manner, it will probably leave behind it a milestone.
Two important things are in view to solve these problems in addition to the on-going robust road improvement and expansion programmes. The first one is the need to provide a well studied blue print of extended parking centers at all city entrances, city centers and business areas where cars could be easily parked at several places of convenience, as of the mornings. Such parking centers could serve as terminals from where one can walk or take public transport systems to offices, working places, or to other trades of one’s choice.
These are important steps. It is obvious that those officials at the municipality or elsewhere are personalities of wide experiences and with immense external exposure. My responsibility as a concerned resident of this city in contributing this piece of writing is only to remind those officials on some agenda items, which may have been most probably, on their own notebooks already.
In so doing, however, I take it upon me to indicate that both these twin problems of lack of convenient parking areas and the grave traffic gnarls, require creative and critical thinking since both need to be addressed skillfully. As the city administration operates on a tight budget, one should not expect an over-night miracle.
However, to leave these problems unsolved will have negative ramification on our development efforts. If both elements remain unaddressed in time, they will, on the contrary, drag behind the effectiveness and efficiency of both the city and the federal work programmes, as Addis Ababa is the hub of the political, administrative and the socio-economic activities of the nation. This conviction will lead one to believe that overcoming the heavy traffic circulation and providing adequate and proper parking centers and corners will require earmarking sufficient resources and technology commensurate to the gravity of the problems.
One obvious solution is installing an efficient and modern public transport system that operates from the proposed terminals to all business centers. Such a public transport system could easily be started with a state-of-the-art bussing system, with multiple buses, on a standard not any less than the Ethiopian Airline’s experience.
Using thus such up-graded and modern arrangement should obviously cost far more than the normal bus fares as the intended mission is a supplementary arrangement to the car-using sections of the society. As the realization of this programme would obviously mean spending billions of birr, it requires working together with interested investors who could co-provide the resources and the technology comfortably on the basis of long range profit sharing scheme.
I gather, the City Administration should critically start thinking over this issue if Addis Ababa is to measure up to its name. Today, the traffic circulation in this city is becoming appalling and unhealthy and a drain on the economy, as far as petrol consumption is concerned, at the same time. On the other hand, since every car is moving on unhealthy acceleration and delays, the problem of pollution is becoming an alarming threat. As break-down of vehicles is also becoming frequent in such a maze, spare-parts are becoming both rear and expensive for some categories of vehicles, adding indirectly, to the pollution and heating problems besides aggravating other economic and social ills.
This is the right time, I would so feel that the enlightened elements of Addis should start to look back onto themselves and realize that if one person starts to park one’s car in such a designated place as indicated in the above discussion and started to use the future public busing system, that the traffic jam is sure to be reduced by that car. If this number increases in leaps and bounds, it is also certain again that the traffic circulation will decrease by that many cars leaving the city roads healthy, non- congested and less polluted, and more open for the free movement of the public transportation system, for emergency vehicles, and for pedestrians.
I presume that this is the way for us, Ethiopians, to solve our problems by ourselves working hand in glove into our development programmes twenty-four hours around the clock on the shift schedule basis which should be implemented all across the board. Then it is easy to show the world that we are people of resolve and determination, vision, zeal and action and that we are pragmatic in approaching our commitments, dictated by rational thinking rather than by our impulses. And as such, that we are ready to change our attitudes to the tune of prevailing circumstances without being blinded by self-ridden motives.