Editor, RE: “Fix Kigali’s rush-hour traffic jam” (The New Times, September 24). Throw money at a problem and it will magically go away; but is it? First, the lights at Gishushu are dysfunctional (half of the time they are off and when they work, left arrow green lights are on while green lights in the opposite direction are also on). Fixing that doesn’t require much... Now for us drivers, if there was an incentive to carpool, will we do it? Or better, the fast lane for buses, mini buses alike as well as cars with the minimum of 4 passengers; and everyone else—including the SUVs and others—go on the slow lane with heavy fines for the culprits. On a macro level, I would even suggest more taxes (most of us won’t like it but...think pollution) for imported vehicles or a policy on odd plate number cars on certain days of the week on the road and/or even plate numbers on the remaining days. Now the best one is the Singaporean model where one pays to use the road at different rates depending on the traffic and the time of the day. That’s possible with ICT. These are ways to raise funds for more roads infrastructure (or tramway) in our growing city. Munga is on point to raise this issue as with the continuous economic growth our country is experiencing; but if all things remain constant then we will be like Nairobi or Kampala in less than 5 years with crazy traffic jam, not only at Gishushu but elsewhere as well. Why don’t we use our young smart ICT gurus and they develop apps (with financial incentives) so drivers can ride from point to point and carpool in the process (similar to Uber) but where the incentive is tax reduction for car owners who car pool x number of times per year? Al
