Living in Entebbe: Turning from Grim to Nightmare The horror of traffic Jam

I used to live with an uncle of mine in Entebbe in the 1970s. I grew to love the place. I also dreamt living by the lakeside. I worked hard to achieve these two and started living in Entebbe. The logic was that since Entebbe road led to the airport the road should be expanded to take on the increasing number of vehicles. The country has grown tremendously in the last 20 years. The number of vehicles increased multifold (of course this growth also relates to growth in poverty due to the increasing number of people and their inability to produce) unfortunately the roads have not increased in number not even in quality. I stopped living in my residence in Entebbe because it would take me an hour and half to get to work. On Friday March 20, 2015 I left Kampala at 4:00pm hoping to get to my residence in an hours’ time. I was in for a shock. From Freedom City the traffic was at a snail speed. I got to my residence at a quarter to 7 tired, frustrated and definitely unhappy. I returned to Kampala on Sunday morning at about 9am and the journey took me an hour and 10 minutes. I still thought that was too much time to spend on a journey of less than 40 km.

The challenge on Entebbe road is of course too many cars and the single carriage way from Zana. At the Zana round about main road is joined by traffic by the side road that goes through the Kabowa area. Of course government is building a highway but will it address the current challenges of the local traffic? Definitely it will not. From Kampala to whoever the road will join, that traffic will continue to use the old road which we currently use. This means that the traffic on Entebbe road can only get worse. 

What needs to be done;

a) Annually expand the dual carriage way of the existing road. Even two kilometres per year will help the traffic.

b) Tarmac the road from Kabusu to Kajjansi. This will create relief on the road between Kampala and Kajjansi

c) Expand the road from Zana to Ndeeba. Again this will relieve some of the traffic on that road. 

d) Explore the southern bypass that can take traffic from the Bweyogere through Bugolobi, Gaba to Kisubi

e) The actual expansion of this same road needs to be given the same thought

Of course Entebbe road is an extreme but all major roads to Kampala have a major problem. For instance traffic to Jinja there is need to develop the routes that go through Namanve Industrial area and those roads the go through Namugongo. 

Tusaba government etuyambe!