Roadblocks

With a loud bang the excavator made the first crack in the main road that cuts through our neighbourhood. That was the first and only kind of information that came to my knowledge that some major road works had begun. No official notice was given what so ever; it just began. How long it will take is anybody’s guess and there are no road signs of course indicating a detour, which would allow traffic to continue; only some big blocks of concrete in the middle of the road.
What followed next are the consequences of a lack of planning and coordination, urban infrastructure lacking behind, selfishness and disrespect. This is what happened:
1.Drivers immediately turned into side roads, trying the find the smartest shortcut to their destination. Taxi’s first, followed by minibuses, the Toyota Corolla’s, 4 wheel drives, buses and trucks; in that order.
2. Drivers coming from the opposite direction found the same route so everybody got stuck as the road they were using was too narrow to accommodate two lanes of traffic. All of a sudden there were clouds of dust and total chaos in an otherwise quite backstreet in a relatively new residential area.
3. Children happily took to the middle of the road that was now under repair and began playing football without being endangered by traffic. There is no other playground to speak of in the neighbourhood so the kids on the block are rejoicing.
4.Owners of the houses along the backstreets now began blocking the same roads that the taxi’s found first, worrying that the unexpected traffic load would damage the very roads they had built themselves in the absence of that kind of infrastructure, normally to be provided by the authorities.
5.In doing so they not only successfully blocked traffic passing through but also neighbour tenants like myself to find a reasonable way out to take the kids to school or to go to work. Neighbours now began getting angry at each other as a result.
6. Every day since I have to look for a different way out to town. There may be a day soon that I have to work from home and begin home schooling my children.
What we are witnessing here is that as a result of the lack of information, communication, coordination and alternatives, everybody who is affected is left at his or her own devices. Hence people begin taking their own measures, whether legal or not and some sort of anarchy begins to develop. I don’t suppose that blocking a road by others than the traffic police can be considered a legal activity, can it?
The residential area I live in is relatively new and indeed much of the required infrastructure is still lacking. But while the area is developing at an amazing pace, with condominiums shooting up from the ground like mushrooms, the main through roads are only a few years old at the most and already need to be maintained or even widened to accommodate the growing traffic demand.
Many people have been working hard building their house in new residential areas like this but apart from investing their resources in their house, they also need to invest in developing some infrastructure, more especially backstreets that lead from the main feeder roads to their house. House owners normally join forces and contribute to such community projects and it is understandable that they want to protect what they developed instead of allowing it to be destroyed again because of the same lack of urban planning.
What is the role of the Kebele officials is in a situation like this, I have yet to find out. I would have thought that this institution is aware of what is to come and that the Kebele is best placed to provide information to the neighbourhood as to when a road is going to be maintained or closed and to plan for the most appropriate detours, thereby taking into account and protecting the interests of the house owners, tenants and road users alike. This does not seem to be the case though, which I consider a missed opportunity to provide leadership and maintain some sort of order in the neighbourhood.
As I mentioned some time ago, the city faces serious challenges of growth and management. There are issues of potential overcrowding, congestion, insufficient infrastructure and inadequate provision of services, which if not handled adequately will negatively affect social-economic development. Urban planning is key, together with the capacity to organize the city and regional towns, manage their growth and make them more efficient and sustainable.
There are good developments in terms of providing housing for families of various income groups and in terms of widening major roads in the city. Infrastructure will provide for quality of life and enhance social and economic development. The challenge however is to plan for it in a proactive and coordinated way, providing information to the public and taking the interests and inconveniences of the citizens into consideration.