Repairs on the 68km Thika-Mang’u road will be completed by the end of the year.
Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia has said the construction works that include re-tarmacking and expansion are being done at a cost of Sh3 billion.
The road that connects Kiambu and Nyandarua counties is used by people travelling to the Rift Valley without the need to go through Nairobi.
But Macharia noted that its dilapidated state has been forcing thousands of travellers to travel to Nairobi before joining the Nairobi-Nakuru highway, further worsening traffic jams in the city.
Passengers are also forced to pay more as the road that is significantly shorter and connects Thika Superhighway to the Nakuru highway is unusable. The repairs started in August last year.
“After the road is done before end of year, travellers going to the Rift Valley from the Central region will be joining the Nakuru highway through the road within a very short time,” he said, adding that the road will further be expanded from Thika to Garissa.
Macharia, who spoke in Gatanga on Tuesday, further noted that the road is one of the 10 infrastructural flagship projects that the national government is implementing in the region.
The others are two roads in Kiambu, one in Murang’a and one in Nyeri under the Sh30 billion Mau Mau road project. He cited the two projects from Kenol to Sagana and Sagana to Marua under the Sh15 billion Kenol-Marua dual carriageway.
The government is also constructing a highway that will connect Murang’a to Nyandarua from Kinyona in Kigumo to Njabini and from Njabini to Naivasha.
Once the roads are completed, Macharia said the road network will be significantly improved on both sides of the Aberdare Forest.
Afterwards, the national government will focus on upgrading feeder roads in rural areas to boost economic growth of the region by improving access to schools and markets and easing transportation of agricultural produce.
The CS called for patience from stakeholders in the transport sector, saying the regulations imposed to control the spread of Covid-19 will be reviewed once the rate of infections subsides.
After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government introduced a raft of measures to cut the spread of the virus among people using the public transport, including the reduction of the number of passengers using a matatu at a go.
Stakeholders have, however, been calling on the government to ease the regulations saying they have been occasioning them huge losses.
Macharia said that his ministry is closely monitoring the situation in partnership with the Health ministry and will ease the regulations when it is deemed safe.
“We know it has been difficult for most of the players in the sector, but our priority right now is protecting Kenyans when they are travelling,” he said.
Edited by Henry Makori
