If there is any good news that has come from KCCA since its inception, > it is the idea to introduce road user fees to be levied on all vehicles accessing the city beginning this year 2016.
This was reached after the discovery that there is a lot of traffic congestion in our city and some of the roads entering the city, majorly connecting from the major highways are sequentially damaged due to the heavy vehicles such as trailers and trucks which are heavily loaded.
Revelations from KCCA indicate that the new charges are expected to be levied according to the weight of the vehicle and distance traveled and that the proceeds will be devoted towards rehabilitating and construction of city roads.
You will all agree that given the heavy traffic today, our capital city has turned into a nuisance. For instance, take a journey from kampala to Kyengera you will realise that this used to take something like 20 minutes two years ago but today the same jopurney takes one full hour simply because of the heavy traffic that renders navigating Kampala’s roads very difficult.
We therefore concur with KCCA Executive Director, Jenifer Musisi when she says that the introduction of these fees will act as one of the ways to reduce traffic congestion especially within the city centre.
Currently, with the growing number of vehicles in Kampala each passing day, compared to the static number of roads, finding free parking space has for the last two decades become a nightmare with motorists having to part with lots of money paid to parking companies such as Multiplex in order to access parking space.
That said and done however, KCCA still has the task of improving the City’s transport system if the innovation will bring good results as it does in modern cities such London which boast of affordable means of transport including electric trains, buses, and cabs among others which Uganda is still dreaming to acquire.
Never the less, with the recent launch of the city train services, coupled with efforts to consolidate cheap bus services around the city, the fees will no doubt do a wonderful job.
