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No solution in sight for Dar transport problems
2007-01-23 08:40:24
By JUMA THOMAS
Commuting in Dar es Salaam is increasingly becoming a headache. People spend most of their precious time at bus stages waiting for transport to and from work.
At one time the Dar es Salaam authorities announced that they will introduce rapid transport system to ease transport problems.
Until today, the project has not started and people have continued to suffer.
It is 7 am but Sarah who works in a legal firm in Dar es Salaam's central business centre is still stranded at a commuter bus stage, about 30 kilometres away from her office.
`I always report to work late because I cannot fight with men to get into daladalas,` she says.
Commuting in this metropolitan city, with more than three million people, is increasingly becoming a problem, especially during rush hours.
With only eight thousand commuter buses, mostly 16 seater micro mini buses, or vipanya (small rats) as they are known because of their size, Dar es Salaam still needs more and bigger buses to serve its ever growing population.
`Getting into a daladala during rush hours is a battle. It is only the strongest who get in,` says Sarah.
Most offices, private and public, open from 7.30 am but with the current transport problem many people, the likes of Sarah, report late.
The situation is even worse in the evening when everybody is rushing for home. Major bus stages such as Posta Mpya, Posta ya Zamani, Akiba and Mnazi Mmoja located in the heart of Dar es Salaam, are always packed to full as people fight for the few vipanya available.
Students suffer most, because during rush hours when demand is high daladala crew only take on passengers who can pay between 200/- and 300/-. Students pay 50/-.
`Sometimes we are forced to pay 200/- in order to get to school early. Otherwise one can spend most part of his/her class hours at a bus stand,` says Joseph Siringo a student at Makongo High School.
The government says it is looking into the possibilities of turning the Dar es Salaam Public Transport Company (UDA) into a school transport service company to solve the persistent transport problem students go through every day.
Students should also be enrolled in schools near their homes so that they are not required to take daladalas to and from school, says the Minister of Community Development, Gender and Children, Sofia Simba.
`There is no reason why pupils living in Tegeta on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam should go to school in Gongo la Mboto, almost 40 kilometres apart,` she says.
Dar es Salaam residents sighed with relief when the government announced few years back that it will introduce rapid buses to ease congestion in the city and enable commuters to reach their work places and other destinations on time.
The government said the project, to be run jointly by the Dar es Salaam City Council, the government and the private sector, would see individual ownership of buses in the city disbanded.
Known as Dar es Salaam Rapid Transit, the project was expected to be operated with modern and sophisticated technology, including computerized control tower that will oversee the bus routine at all time.
The country`s national transport policy stipulates the establishment of a transport system that aims at enhancing mobility and which is affordable to low income people.
With rapid buses traffic jams would have been reduced.
Traffic jams, is another factor making transport in Dar es Salaam to be difficult as turn round for daladala buses takes longer, making people to wait too long in the stages.
But good as it sounds, it is now more than three years since it was made public, and not a single rapid bus is on the road.
`The idea is good but why is it not starting,` asks Jafar Ahmed from Gongo la Mboto.
The coordinator of the project Asteria Mlambo was recently reported as saying that final touches of the project were underway.
She said what was being awaited was financial support from the World Bank, the government and other financiers so that buses could be bought, and roads as well as terminal centers rehabilitated.
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