[sustran] Africa/pavements for non-motorised transport tracks

[Paul Barter]

......
>Still, all is not lost: one of the good things is that these cities still
>have a chance to develop less car dominated systems.
>I am presently working on a NMT pilot project in Kenya which is part of
>the Worldbank coordinated Sub-Sahara Africa Transport Programme (SSATP)
....
Thanks Jan for the insight into Nairobi's situation and news on the World
Bank project!  It is good to hear that NMT is getting some priority in
this. At the Velo Australis conference last year I also heard a lot about
similar projects in Tanzania.  By the way, if any of your African
colleagues have e-mail we would welcome their contributions to this list!
Feel free to let them know about it.

>We are soon to make a pavement choice for a dedicated footpath/cycle track
>network to be constructed in Eastern Nairobi as part of this project. I am
>interested in hearing about experiences in similar areas with pavements
>made of concrete slabs (say 30x30x5 cm) laid on a sand bed. Although we
>have plenty of them in The Netherlands we are concerned that in extremely
>poor areas theft of these slabs may be a problem.

Perth in Western Australia has an extensive network of off-road bicycle
ways, some of which use concrete slabs - larger than the ones you describe.
They have very sandy soils and although it is a high income place, their
bike budget contraints and long distances probably led them to look for low
cost solutions.  I am searching for the contact details of BikeWest, the
bicycle unit in the Department of Transport there.. but am having no luck.
Anyone else?



A. Rahman Paul Barter
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
c/- AP2000,  PO Box 12544,  50782 Kuala Lumpur,  Malaysia.
Fax: +60 3 253 2361,  E-mail: tkpb at barter.pc.my