State invites bids to construct Juja footbridge on Thika highway

The Kenya National Highways Authority(Kenha) has invited bids for the construction of a pedestrian overpass at Juju Highpoint on the busy Nairobi-Thika highway, amid rising road accidents at this point.

The State agency said the footbridge would be built at the Boda Boda stage near Centurion Hotel.

The works will also comprise of construction a retaining wall at Witeithie on the busy highway.

Residents of Juja have for years pressured the State to build a pedestrian overpass on the highway to curb frequent accidents and loss of lives.

As part of the road safety measures, the State is also set to build three pedestrian overpasses on sections of the newly constructed Nairobi Expressway, yielding to pressure from thousands of highly inconvenienced city residents.

Kenha said the pedestrian overpasses would be built at the Katani bus station, Syokimau standard gauge railway station, and the Airtel complex sections of the 27-kilometer road.

Also read: Why Outer Ring Road is Nairobi’s deadliest

The footbridges form part of changes marked to improve user convenience and pedestrian safety on the expressway.

In a key modification, the government plans to re-design the expressway to allow easy access to the Central Business District (CBD).

The Infrastructure ministry said in May that the expressway will be designed in a way that people from Westlands will now land at Nyayo House while those from the Airport will now land at Haile Selassie Avenue or Green park bus terminus.

The expressway and the Southern, Western, and Northern by-passes are part of infrastructure projects aimed at decongesting the Nairobi CBD and its satellite areas.

The State also targets the implementation of the dream Nairobi Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) project from the current financial year.

The National Treasury earlier this year allocated some Sh1.17 billion to kick off the BRT project.

The government will provide the bulk Sh1.05 billion while the rest of the budget will be footed through foreign financing, the National Treasury said in an expenditure plan for the current fiscal year.

This will make a substantial improvement compared to the current financial year where some Sh700 million was approved for allocation.

The BRT seeks to help decongest traffic within the Nairobi central business district and its environs.

For the BRT, Nairobi Metropolitan Area Authority has gazetted 12 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.