Who cares for East Africa’s road travelers?

The author of ‘I love you too’, Amit Kalantri, once said: “Travelling shouldn’t be just a tour, it should be a tale”. I don’t travel that much these days because of the nature of my job but in the past, all my trips were followed by a travel article; last week, I travelled to Kampala by the night bus and I have a rather sad tale to tell. In a week where RwandAir unveiled a new member of its fast expanding fleet of modern Next Generation Boeings, Kigali Bus Service, the city’s leading public transport operator was put under special administrative watch by Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA). Transportation is at the center of successful regional integration. It is the glue of our daily lives so when it goes wrong, it negatively colors your day, makes you feel angry, impotent and curtails all possibilities; for the record, that is Zipcar CEO Robin Chase that I’ve just plagiarized. So I am here wondering whether anyone cares about East Africa’s road transport users especially considering that to most East African traders, flying in the comfort of Kalisimbi’s warm and comfortable belly will always be a pipedream, for obvious reasons of affordability. Like radio in mass communication, road transport is the leading means of mass travel, accessible and affordable to most East Africans; but to EAC traders who ply the Kigali-Kampala-Nairobi route on a weekly basis, it is also a brutal and unappealing experience. The ‘brutality’ starts the moment you get to Nyabugogo National Bus Park. Here, Rwanda’s legendary cleanliness and orderliness takes a break and the chaotic hustle and bustle of Nyabugogo taxi touts takes charge. During a recent interaction between media personalities and City of Kigali Mayor, one blogger pointed out how the jumbled mess in Nyabugogo distorts the otherwise beautiful image of Rwanda than one forms while descending upon Kanombe by air transport. This concern was soothed by a revelation of a major plan by City of Kigali to give Nyabugogo a face-lift; that will come in the form of wider roads and construction of a modern car-park that will ensure order. Apparently, it is part of the city’s wider plan to entice Kigalians to abandon their private cars and embrace public buses for city travel. Talking about buses, Modern Coast Coach is an East African traveler’s version of RwandAir’s Kalisimbi. The Kenyan owned inter-border bus company has a fleet of luxurious and innovatively comfortable coaches that ply the Nairobi-Kampala-Kigali route on a daily basis. It was 5pm on Friday and I had to be in Kampala by 10am the next morning; that meant it was either RwandAir or Modern Coast; I chose the latter, preferring to spend US$50 for a return ticket in the bus’s first class seats to spending US$295 for an air ticket in economy class. You have to give it up to these Kenyans; Modern Coast Coaches are actually very comfortable. A seat in their VIP section is akin to one in an airplane’s first class travel cabin; thick leather cushions with soft armrests, charging sockets to keep the phone battery up and then a screen with a movie showing, for each traveler. What they did was reduce on the number of seats in a bus and create space for creativity. There is a red carpet in the corridor upon which passengers walk and once seated, each is handed a bottle of water. But the comfort in the coach is marred by rough nature of the Gatuna-Kampala road; the only comfortable section is from Nyabugogo to the Gatuna border where the road is smooth and bump-free. Unfortunately, it only lasts less than two hours of a nearly eight hour-journey. That point where Gatuna becomes Katuna also marks the beginning of ‘torturous’ experience and for six hours or so; it feels like driving in an abandoned garden of potatoes, this, because of the bumps resulting from the many speed-control humps in the road. While the attempt to control speed and prevent road accidents is commendable, surely, the engineers who worked on this road could have thought of better speed-control mechanisms to ensure a smoother experience on the road for travelers. With such a bumpy experience, there is no prize for guessing right that by the time a traveler gets to their final destination they are battered to the bone. The most miserable experience is during the customs and immigration process of clearing travelers and goods. Three buses will have left Kigali at the same time and arrive at Gatuna within five minutes of each other; passengers from each bus then step-off into long queues, to have their passports checked before they are cleared to exit or enter either border. It was drizzling when we got to at Gatuna border; but there is no shade for travelers to escape the rain; they have to brave the downpour until they get inside the privileged passport office. As for those that have goods to clear through customs, it is a muddy boots experience. Here is my Sunday prayer, if road travelers’ lives matter, authorities need to collaborate on investing in infrastructure at the Gatuna/Katuna borders; start with a long shade under which travelers and traders can walk as they seek clearance through the immigration/custom processes. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Who cares for East Africa’s road travelers?