One of Nairobi’s main urban problems is traffic. The city is notoriously known for its horrible grid-lock. The problem itself stems from many factors. One of the most famous ones is the minibuses called “matatus”, which serves the same purpose as taxis do here in the US. They contribute greatly to the jams because they remain the only option for most Nairobi commuters. Not only that, but their drivers are famous for their recklessness, and the police blame them for a great part of Kenya's high death toll on the road. On the streets of Nairobi it is not strange to find matatus weaving wildly from lane to lane when traffic starts to slow down in one of them and not to mention overlapping as if they were the only ones in a hurry. There are also reports of them using lanes where traffic flows in the opposite direction just to gain on the traffic.
If asked most Nairobi inhabitants would also blame the public transportation system there for the traffic. The roads leading into the main central business district usually have one lane completely occupied by solely buses, leaving the mass amount of vehicles heading into the city with only one other lane for uses.
The most obvious reason why the traffic is so bad in Nairobi is that the drivers themselves are the cause. Not only do their sheer numbers create a problem but most are completely reckless too. The drivers there are legendary for being daring on the road, from jumping traffic lights and driving on the wrong lane to not giving way at roundabouts.
The city of Nairobi has tried a few things to try to help the issue. One of their major ventures was to discourage people from driving into the city by raising the cost of parking. They have also tried to discourage people from driving by placing cameras that monitor the traffic and have their live feed available online at all times to Nairobi inhabitants via the web. And the government has tried to place speed limiters and recorders on the matatus. Despite all of these attempts, they have had little affect on helping the situation.
Unlike the cities small scale attempts on fixing the issue, there is a big scale scenario that could be of help. Since the city is comparable to New York City and it has a history as a railroad town, Nairobi could very easily become a subway city. No subway, light rail, or tramway currently exist in the city thus all the people that need to commute are forced to use the roads. Building an underground form of transportation such as a subway could be very possible considering how high above sea level Nairobi is. If implemented a subway could alleviate some of these traffic problems and make Nairobi a safer place. Sources: