|  RESIDENTS'
ROAD RATIONAL
A beginner’s guide to short term road
maintenance
The frustration is there everyday: potholes,
potholes, potholes, with cars swerving to avoid them, endangering
other motorists, pedestrians and anybody who is brave enough
to cycle. Huge drop offs where the shoulders are supposed
to be do not make the situation better. Whenever it rains
there is water everywhere on the road and we know what that
means – more pot holes. Who is supposed to maintain our roads?
And can we do anything to help the situation? Read on.
As you may be aware our roads have three owners:
1. The Ministry of Roads – Roads Department
owns the three main roads: Ngong Road, Langata Road, which
turns into Dagoretti Road, and Magadi Road.
2. The Nairobi City Council (NCC) owns all the
adopted streets i.e. the main residential roads that have
been improved to a certain
standard.
3. Private individuals or groups of individuals
who own private or estate roads.
That however still leaves a big group of road
reserves, which are roads and tracks that are not owned by
anybody, but can be assisted by either the NCC or private
groups and individuals. A good example is the Karen plains
‘road’ network that should have been developed before the
area was subdivided – but never was. 
Lets first look at the main roads, which belong
to the Roads Department under the Provincial Roads Engineer
(PRE). These are all past their sell-by-date and all need
major rehabilitation; but as we all know resources are insufficient
and with the current ongoing contracts, no major works can
be expected on these roads for at least another three to five
years.
In the meantime the ‘Pothole Patching’ unit
based at Ngong keeps pouring bitumen in the potholes and generally
manages to keep the potholes at bay although the quality leaves
a lot to be desired. This results in more and more bumpy roads,
which again pond water and, yes, new potholes develop. In
addition the PRE tries to maintain the shoulders and drains.
For example, they have dumped gravel on shoulders on Ngong
Road – which will (sooner or later) be spread, allowing the
matatus to pull off the road when they stop. Following a request
from KLDA this year the ministry sent their road-marking unit
to Karen and they are currently marking the roads. Please
stay off the lines unless necessary, so that they last a bit
longer.
The NCC roads can broadly be divided into three
groups: the newly renovated roads (late 90s), the dilapidated
paved roads (Karen and
Langata South Roads being good examples) and finally the dilapidated
unpaved gravel and earth roads (such as Pepo Lane). Each year
NCC uses Ksh 5-10 million from the fuel levy on repairing
these roads, an example being Tembo Road at Hardy Dukas. Again
the funds are not enough and the workmanship leaves a lot
to be desired.
The private roads do not get any outside help
but are often the best maintained roads, and finally the ‘roads’
with no owners only get emergency help following outcries
from residents. So what can we do? The KLDA’s roads subcommittee
follows up on the Roads Department and NCC, gives input to
their work plans, and checks if the work plans are being carried
out. Sometimes with visible results, but mostly not.
You and your neighbours can also help by –
1. appointing a road monitor for your road to report road
problems to KLDA and coordinate community work.
2. cleaning and maintaining the drains and
shoulders on your road as follows.
- DRAINS: all drains and culverts need to be cleaned and desilted
at least twice a year (before the rains). This is a very easy
job, which anyone can do, leaving the NCC and the ministry
to concentrate on the roadway. Just make sure that the water
from the road can enter the drain, and flow in the drain and
under the culverts.
- SHOULDERS: the shoulder is the part right
next to the road, where the cars and matatus should pull over,
and where people,
horses and even bicycles should be able to pass. The shoulders
support the pavement so that the tarmac does not break off
causing the road to become narrower and narrower. The shoulders
also lead the runoff water to where it belongs – in the drains.
If the shoulders are higher than the road the water will stay
on the road and the road will deteriorate. If the shoulders
are much lower than the road then the road will start breaking
off.
You can rectify this by first adding hard material
such as building stones, then topping it with soft material
such as soil, (even silt from the drains is
better that nothing). If the shoulders are higher than the
road then please remove the excess material and put it where
there is no shoulder (often in
dips such as the dip at Link Road on Windy Ridge). Maintaining
the shoulders is an easy task that your gardener can do –
all he requires is a wheelbarrow, a shovel AND YOUR GUIDANCE.
Please see if you can help. Together we can
maintain our roads for everybody’s benefit. We in the roads
subcommittee are always willing to advise. Just contact us
through the KLDA on 891784.
|
Karen
Plains - Mr Alfred Adema Tel: 883219 mobile: 0722 519 405
