Anyone living in Gaborone can see that traffic congestion is a growing problem. Transport within Gaborone is a major issue and whether you are on the road or public transport, neither seems to be improving. Due to globalisation, traffic congestion has become a major source of frustration for road users in Botswana and is likely to worsen over time as towns become busier.
Apart from the steady increase in traffic, what is more disappointing is that much of Botswana’s road network is not only old and rundown, but was developed for the few inhabitants back then. In Botswana, for example, most towns are still designed for the old modes of transport. Therefore they cannot maintain a large number of vehicles. Botswana is reported to approximately have 400,000 registered vehicles, and this figure goes up on a daily basis as a result of the cheaper imports of vehicles from Asia. The most disappointing part about this is the fact that over 50 percent of these vehicles are in the capital city, Gaborone.
The current increase in rush hour traffic will at the very least necessitate significant outlays for additional trackage, and with those outlays, the associated maintenance costs will swell. However, it does not make sense for Botswana to construct new roads since they cannot maintain the current roads. But, if additional roads are to be constructed, there is need to conduct this exercise simultaneously with the repair of some of the pothole ridden roads which pose a serious hazard to motorists and pedestrians.
Potholes are a hazard to pedestrians because they risk being rundown by cars as drivers swerve to the left and right, trying to avoid potholes. It is a no brainer that potholes are also a danger to motorists as they can cause a steering system misalignment, causing a car to pull or drift away from a straight road and cause an accident.
For decades, most countries have been adding lanes and building roads to fight congestion. Although engineers have found out that widening and building more roads actually creates more traffic as a result of the concept called induced demand – [the increase of supply makes people want that thing (roads) even more], this cannot be an excuse not to build more roads which are already in need of intervention.
History does not lie, and the current state of our roads attests to the fact that road repair and maintenance has been lagging horribly. I would advise that transportation spending must be directed to repairs than maintenance, for now. This is because committing funds to construction than repairs will end up doing more harm than good seeing that we are failing to maintain what we already have.
Since we can’t build our way out of congestion, seeing that it is the roads themselves that cause traffic, Urban Planners must as a matter of urgency, step up their game and address this glitch. In Botswana’s context, it would also have been of great benefit if some industries were located on the outskirts of Gaborone. This, is many ways, reduces traffic jams which have become a quandary, especially in Broadhurst industrial.
Botswana Traffic growth begs for a solution. If new roads cannot be built, then maintaining the current roads would go a long way in addressing road related problems. While I cannot vouch for the fact that congestion hurts the economy, I am quite sure that it is a very real cost and drag on productivity. There is no way we will be able to grow our road network at the same rate as the population is; we just have to find more ways of managing traffic.