BCC encourages walking and vehicle sharing to ease traffic congestion
Bulawayo residents have been encouraged to walk and share vehicles to ease traffic congestion and reduce carbon emissions in the city, with the local authority arguing that the central business district is compact enough to navigate on foot.
Black News 
Speaking to CITE, Bulawayo City Council Corporate Communications Manager Nesisa Mpofu said the city was urging residents to leave their vehicles at home where possible and adopt a walking culture, particularly in the CBD.
“Our thrust as a city is that at some point, we need to encourage residents and ourselves to adopt the culture of walking in the central business district. The CBD of Bulawayo is not very vast in terms of kilometres, so sometimes we encourage you to park your car or leave it at home and walk, because at the moment there are a lot of vehicles coming in,” Mpofu said.
She added that vehicle sharing within households and communities could further cut both congestion and the city’s carbon footprint.
Mpofu outlined several measures already in place or under consideration to decongest the CBD. She said the parking management scheme being implemented by Tendy Three Investments (TTI) was already helping to regulate vehicle flow in the city centre. The city is also exploring proposals to convert Herbert Chitepo Street and Fort Street into one-way traffic lanes, though she said implementation would depend on road conditions and the availability of rehabilitation funding.
“For us to start on the roads, we have to look at the quality and state of the road, and how much is needed to rehabilitate them to ensure that when they are converted, they are in a good condition,” she said.
Mpofu said the installation of barricades along Robert Mugabe Way had already yielded results, improving traffic flow and curbing dangerous driving habits such as illegal U-turns and stopping in the middle of the road.
“At one point it was becoming difficult to navigate that intersection, but since we barricaded and created a one-way flow of traffic, it has eased the congestion,” she said. “You find that it also helps to manage driver behaviour, because people were doing U-turns and stopping in the middle of the road to pick up or drop off passengers. With the barricades, that is no longer possible.”
She acknowledged that the changes initially met with resistance from some road users but said the public had since adapted.
“We initially had a lot of resistance, where people felt it was making their journeys longer, but with time I think we have really mastered the system as residents,” Mpofu said.
She also appealed to residents not to use the drums placed along roads as rubbish bins, noting they were temporary structures that would eventually be replaced by concrete barricades.
