Project on Nairobi Walkability

1. WALKABILILITY IN NAIROBI CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT (NCBD), KENYA
FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT FOR INRODUCTION TO PLANNING 800
CORNELIUS SIMON OKUMU 12/16/13
INRODUCTION TO
PLANNING 800

2. 1
Table of Contents
Abstract.........................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction. .................................................................................................................................................3
What Is Walkability? .....................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review..........................................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives and Methods ...............................................................................................................7
Analysis and Findings....................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion and Discussion..........................................................................................................................13
References. .................................................................................................................................................14
Table of Figures
Figure 1.1 Map of Nairobi Streets.................................................................................................................6
Figure 2 River Road Street ............................................................................................................................8
Figure 3 Tom Mboya Street ..........................................................................................................................9
Figure 4 Kenyatta Avenue...........................................................................................................................10
Figure 5 Real Per capita GDP of Kenya........................................................................................................11

3. 2
Abstract
Most sub-Saharan African cities are inhibited with more walking people since majority of the
population cannot afford to purchase vehicles. A small percentage of the some people prefer to
walk since it less expensive. These increases opportunities for walking which enhance people’s
lives through improved health, reduction in financial expenditure, improvement of the physical
environment through reductions in carbon monoxide emissions, and the potential for increased
social capital through accidental and intentional social opportunities. This project will look into
ways to improve the walkability in NCBD taking into consideration Center for Disease and
Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) standards of walkability. I will also
look into areas that NCBD has worked on and made improvements to enhance walkability.
The areas covered in my project are the research objectives and methods, literature review in
relation to NCBD built environment and the ideas of walkability .The analysis, discussion and
conclusions of the research study makes up the end part of the project. More emphasis will be
laid upon the built environment, tangible and visible physical characteristics, such as land use
and appearance. Natural environment will play a big role in my research objectives and methods
section. There will be deep analysis and findings on areas that Improvements are needed in
comparison to other more walkable area or neighborhoods (blocks). Finally there will be a
discussions on findings on NCBD as a walkable place.

4. 3
Introduction.
The country known today as Kenya was created by European colonialism in Africa, which
lasted from the mid-1800s to the 1960s. Kenya was a British protectorate from 1895 to 1920 and
a colony from 1920 to 1963. In 1920 the Protectorate was declared a Crown Colony and renamed
Kenya. The name Kenya appears to have come from the Kamba word Kinyaa, meaning "ostrich"
(1). The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyorobi, which translates to "the
place of cool waters". However, Nairobi is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun”. The
city is located at the Nairobi River in the highlands, in the south-central part of the country, it lies
on the central Kenyan plateau at an altitude of about 1,680 m (5,500 feet). The city has an
estimated urban population of between 3 and 4 million inhabitants. It is the commercial and
cultural center of Kenya (3).The Nairobi National Park was established by Britain in 1946, the
first national park in East Africa. It remains unique in the sense that it is the only capital city
where a game reserve is bordering it in the world (2). One of the most shocking single-day
events in Nairobi’s history was the U.S. Embassy bombing on August 7, 1998. Walking around
Nairobi should be relatively straightforward, as the city Centre is small and accessible yet that is
not the case. In some areas, there can be a security risk while walking, and it is best to seek local
advice before setting out. Taxis are widely available, and convenient, buses operate on set routes
throughout the city, Matatus (Public Minibuses) also operate on city routes throughout the day,
and are the most popular form of local public transport (4). Given the dense population of
Nairobi city, its Central Business District (CBD) is constantly full of people walking and always
jam packed by pedestrians and vehicles on the streets. This calls for a need for a walkable NCBD
since it is usually the final destination or an intersection for most Nairobians going to work,
tourists or any activity that both Nairobians and visitors alight at.

5. 4
What Is Walkability?
“Walkability is a measure of the effectiveness of community design in promoting walking and
bicycling as alternatives to driving cars to reach shopping, schools, and other common
destinations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health
Organization (WHO), and other health organizations advocate increasing the walkability of
communities to promote fitness, combat obesity, and enhance sustainability (5). The portion of
the built environment often referred to when studying walkability is created by streets,
streetscapes and buildings present in the neighborhood (6). Nairobi Central Business District
(NCBD), lacks a lot of these walkability attributes, In spite of being a hot hub of walking city.
There is a need to improve the overall walkability of NCBD since in any given day in Nairobi
city it is the most populated place in the whole country with people walking up and down the
streets.

6. 5
Literature Review
We know that walkability neighborhoods and cities play a big role in people’s health and social
wellbeing yet we have very limited information on how diversity, urban designs and density of
populations can be quantified to accurately measure the relationship of walkability and quality of
life. Prasanta Bhattaria (2007), used the Geographic Information System and available data
related to the physical features, this GIS based analysis were us to identify the Walkability
conditions of the streets of city of Buffalo (11). Arjun Rattan, Anthony Campese and Chris Eden
(2012), used a quantifying walkability model taking three factors, density, diversity and design
for use in measuring walkability, where the Arc GIS 9.3 extensions were used to make a realistic
determination and visualization of walkability feasibility(5). In 1929, Clarence Author Perry
,introduced his neighborhood unit, where the distance each residence had to travel to reach the
core or perimeter commercial unit was important and was not to be longer than a quarter mile
walk (6). I could have used the same method to try to analyze NCBD walkability measurement
however due to limited resources and given the studies on walkability are so recent and few I am
going to base some of my analysis and arguments on these insights and methods and to some
extent base my analysis on perceptual information and physical environment.

7. 6
Map of Nairobi Central Business District (NCBD)
Fig. 1.1
Map of Nairobi Streets
Picture from Google maps.
The NCBD is the busiest portion of the whole of Nairobi city and in a given day the streets
within Nairobi are densely populated with people walking, cycling and driving. Nairobi streets
for the most part are straight as traditional streets in the United States as you can see in Fig. 1.1,
this enable maximum pedestrian connectivity, also a mix of compatible uses (6). There is all
kinds of physical environments around NCBD including but not limited to bus stations, markets,
co-operate offices etc as you can see from the map. This call for different questions and answers
on how to improve the walkability of a complex yet simple environment as Nairobi NCBD.

8. 7
Research Objectives and Methods
Objectives
This project will seek to answer questions to how the physical environments, design and social
interactions in NCBD can be improved to help improve walkability within the city area, it does
not intend to address causality. Areas that will be examined include ways to improve the
walkability in NCBD taking into consideration CDC and WHO standards of walkability. Areas
that NCDB has worked on and made improvements to enhance walkability will be the second
objective.
Methods
This project is going to look into ways we can improve the pedestrian’s walkability and safety in
NCBD taking into consideration the streets layout and physical environments that currently exist
in NCBD streets. This study is completely based on built environment. Perception and firsthand
experiences, and available data related to the physical features. With the available resources and
criteria regarding good, vibrant, and walkable community. The study tries to identify most
walkable areas and least walkable areas around the NCBD city. The Methods that will be used
to access a good representation of walkable areas related to physical features includes:
Obstructions that will appear to interfere with visibility, Visibility of any Crossing aids in
existence in areas where pedestrian paths intersect roads, the surface Conditions of the walking
paths, the types of buildings and land uses that were seen, trees within the city walking paths and
street roads, vehicles were parked close to walking and cycling paths. The suitability analysis is
an important aspect of this study. It is used as a methodology for identifying the best and worst
walkable area in the city, this will be achieved by accessing, visibility of people and how dense
were the people walking, traffic volume, parks, restaurants and bike paths.

9. 8
Analysis and Findings
Generally NCBD can be categorized into two regions, the more walkable areas are to the
North of Moi Avenue and the less walkable areas are to the South of Moi Avenue.
Areas That Need Improvements
Fig. 2
As a result of physical environment and suitability analysis in this study, it can be seen most of
the areas in River road (South side of NCDB) of the city has poor level of Walkability. There is
clear lack of walking paths, cars are parked dis-orderly, a little bit of tree cover and people
River Road Street

10. 9
walking within parked cars, there was also obstruction from cars on the street and more so mixed
land us for offices, bus stop and businesses.
Areas That Need Improvements Continued
Fig. 3
Tom Mboya Street
This is another area to the south of NCBD, the Google map illustrates exactly where that picture
was taken. There was no clear walking paths, the surface condition looks bad, high volume of
people and cars in the streets, partial representation of trees, no crossing aid assistance to name
but a few.

11. 10
Areas that are walkable
Fig.4
Kenyatta Avenue
The result of physical environment and suitability analysis in this study, it can be seen most of
the areas in Kenyatta Avenue (North side of NCDB), clear walking paths, tree shades, mixture of
land us, huge walking paths in the middle of the street, cars arranged orderly and less dense
people walking.

12. 11
Recommendations
Due to the high traffic volume the NCBD should consider allowing only buses into the city
center, or increase the parking fees to discourage people from parking in NCBD. Currently,
The NCBD parking fees is the most expensive place to park at (7, 8). It was previously Ksh 140
per hour but currently Ksh 300 per day, this is approximately 3.6 use dollars per hour. Mega
transport companies with more than 50 vehicles will pay Sh100,000 for operating licenses up
from Sh80,000 while single vehicle operators will pay Sh15,000 a year instead of Sh10,000 (8).
Compared to real per capita gross domestic product in Kenya Fig 1.5 below (9). Real Per
Capita GDP in Kenya
Fig. 5
Real Per capita GDP of Kenya
Source: Government of Kenya Economic Survey, Various Issues
You can see how much this is very expansive affair. On contrary this this would be beneficial
since a lot of people will opt to walk within the NCBD than drive or pay more to board a bus, as

13. 12
a result get more exercise which is beneficial to their health at the expense of saving more money
too. Less cars and people congestion will improve people’s safety given people’s safety in
Nairobi is a big concern, even though majority of criminal incidents are from properties (10).
Construction of one-way streets within the city, for Instance in PIC 1.2 (Tom Mboya Street), the
streets are less attractive, no walking paths and people are using the same streets as cars, it does
not look safe to walk especially if you are unfamiliar with the location, vehicles are obstructive
and can cause accidents, Lack of traffic stop signs, there is also a mixture of bus station, colleges
and office buildings. Through experience this is the busiest part of NCBD and yet the walking
paths beneath the commercial buildings are so narrow, poorly kept and risky to walk on. More
so, the stop lights rarely works most of the time or motor vehicle operators purposefully ignore
the traffic light, this calls for on-site police officers all the time or workable traffic lights.

14. 13
Conclusion and Discussion
The purpose of my project was to look into ways to improve the walkability in NCBD taking
into consideration CDC and WHO standards of walkability. This perception and physical
attribute based walkability analysis gives an acceptable result in identifying highly walkable and
least walkable areas within NCBD of Buffalo. The result might be different working with
different variables, classification, and method of analysis. The South side of CBD of Nairobi
shows least walkable area because these area are mostly industrial buildings, buildings with low
densities, abandoned old cars higher vacancy rate to name but a few. Analysis like this is highly
subjective to the method carried out and the variables used. This study is an exercise to look at
the existing scenarios of walkability within CBD of Nairobi. The study results are not conclusive
and could be used for further research or used as a data base for verifying the actual condition of
the streets for walkability to take necessary steps for improving the areas with poor walking
conditions.

15. 14
References.
1."Nairobi." History -. Courtyard by Marriott, 1 Dec. 2. Web. 1 Dec. 2013. <http://www.city-
data.com/world-cities/Nairobi-History.html>.
2. "___ Satellite View and Map of the City of Nairobi, Kenya." Google Map of Nairobi, Kenya. N.p., n.d.
Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/google_map_Nairobi.htm>.
3. "Magical Kenya." Magical Kenya. Kenya Tourist Board, n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.magicalkenya.com/>.
4. Rattan, Arjen, and Anthony Campese. "ArcUser." Modeling Walkability. N.p., 2012. Web. 11 Dec.
2013. <http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0112/modeling-walkability.html>.
5. Glanz, Theresa A. "Walkability, Social Interaction and Neighborhood Designs." Walkability, Social
Interaction and Neigbourhood Designs (2011): 1-70. Print.
6. Wanambisi, Laban. "Parking to Cost Sh300 in Nairobi’s CBD." Capital News. N.p., 28 Aug. 2013. Web.
4 Dec. 2013. <http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2013/08/parking-to-cost-sh300-in-nairobis-cbd/>.
7. Njoroge, Kiarie, and Justus Wanga. "Life Gets Tougher in Nairobi as City Hall Raises Charges." - Politics
and Policy. Business Daily, 4 Sept. 2013. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. <http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Life-
gets-tougher-in-Nairobi-as-City-Hall-raises-charges-----/-/539546/1980304/-/bfq46f/-/index.html>.
8. Gakuru, Rhoda, and Naomi Mathenge. "Poverty, Growth and Income Distribution in Kenya."
AGRODEP. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. <http://www.agrodep.org/>.
9. "Safety in Nairobi." Expatriate Community for Expats Worldwide. InterNations Connecting Global
Minds, n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. <http://www.internations.org/nairobi-expats/guide/moving-to-nairobi-
15857/safety-in-nairobi-3>.
10. "Nairobi: Health & Safety." - TripAdvisor. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g294207-s206/Nairobi:Kenya:Health.And.Safety.html>.
11. Bhattarai, Prasanta. "A GIS Based Walkability Analysis." Independent Study (August,2007): 1-28.
Http://www.vattarai.com/mup_project/other_projects/Independent_study_report.pdf. Web. 9 Dec.
2013. <http://www.vattarai.com>.