Waiyaki Way traffic:
one road, three jobs.

One road doing three jobs

Waiyaki Way is the Nairobi end of the A104, the trunk road that carries on to Naivasha, Nakuru and the border. So it has long-distance traffic on it at all hours. It is also the daily commute for Kikuyu, Kinoo, Uthiru, Kangemi and Mountain View. And for its last two kilometres it stops being a highway altogether and becomes the main street of Westlands, a destination in its own right with offices, malls and hotels either side.

Three different kinds of traffic, with three different reasons to slow down, sharing one carriageway. Long-distance vehicles want to keep moving, commuters want to get past, and Westlands traffic wants to turn off. The turning is what costs everyone else the time.

There is a fourth factor now. The Nairobi Expressway ends at James Gichuru, which means every vehicle that paid to skip Mombasa Road and Uhuru Highway rejoins ordinary traffic right there, a couple of kilometres short of Westlands. The Expressway did not remove that jam. It moved it to the off-ramp.

When it jams

Inbound, the queue builds from about 6:00am and the worst of it runs 7:00 to 8:45. Westlands then keeps receiving traffic well after the general peak has eased, because people are arriving there rather than passing through. There is a genuine lunchtime bump around Westlands for the same reason.

Outbound starts around 4:30pm. Westlands empties first, roughly 5:00 to 7:00, and the through traffic heading for Kikuyu and beyond carries on past 8:00. Friday evening is the worst of the week by a clear margin, because the long-distance traffic and the commuter traffic leave at the same time.

Rain hits this road harder than most. The Kangemi stretch drains badly, and the Museum Hill approach is one of the first places in the city to back up once the underpasses there start filling.

Where it jams, going into town

• Kikuyu and Kinoo: town-centre activity and matatu stages at the outer end, before you have even reached the dual section proper.
• Uthiru and Ndumbo: junction and stage activity, with a lot of pedestrian movement across the road.
• Kangemi: the flyover and the market beneath it. Matatus stopping, heavy foot traffic, and vehicles turning into the market area. Often the first serious stop of the morning.
• Mountain View and Gitaru: estate traffic joining in a short stretch.
• James Gichuru junction: the Expressway off-ramp adds a fresh stream of vehicles here, all of them wanting the same two lanes you are already in.
• ABC Place and the Safaricom stretch: office turns in and out through the morning.
• Westlands: Rhapta Road, Mpaka Road and the Ring Road junctions. This is destination traffic, so it does not clear the way through traffic does.
• Chiromo and Museum Hill: the interchange where Waiyaki Way, Limuru Road and Uhuru Highway all meet. Anything happening in the CBD shows up here first.

In the evening the order reverses, with the addition that the Westlands exit onto Waiyaki Way becomes a bottleneck in its own right between five and seven.

Alternatives that actually help

• Southern Bypass: the big one. If you are coming from the Kikuyu end and heading for Karen, Langata, the airport or Mombasa Road, this takes you round the bottom of the city and you never touch Waiyaki Way at all.
• Northern Bypass and the Red Hill Link: connects the Limuru Road side to Waiyaki Way. Useful for Ruaka, Limuru Road and Two Rivers destinations without going through Westlands.
• Lower Kabete Road: a parallel run serving Kabete, Spring Valley and Loresho. It is narrow and has its own peak, so it rewards leaving early rather than treating it as an escape hatch.
• Naivasha Road: links the Dagoretti and Kawangware side to the Kikuyu end, and is the sensible route if you are heading for Ngong Road rather than town.
• Ngong Road: if your destination is Kilimani, Hurlingham or Upper Hill, going that way is usually better than fighting through Museum Hill to come back out again.
• The Expressway: only worth it if you are crossing most of the city. Entering at James Gichuru to travel two exits is paying for very little.

How Waiyaki Way closures get announced

The A104 is a national trunk road, so KeNHA handles planned works and diversions along it and posts them ahead of time. The Expressway operator announces anything affecting the elevated section and the James Gichuru ramp separately. Westlands street closures are Nairobi County and KURA, and NTSA and the traffic police cover incidents.

This road has had near-continuous works along parts of its length for years, which means lane layouts change without much warning. A route that worked last month may not this month. That is the sort of thing the driver two hundred metres ahead of you knows and no notice will reach you about.