[sustran] Motorcycles in cities

[Eric Britton]

Uganda

Not fit for a queen

Sep 7th 2006 | KAMPALA
>From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SRJTNRQ

The end of the road for Kampala's signature taxis 

 

LONDON has black cabs, New York its yellow ones. Bangkok has tuk-tuks and Hanoi
has rickshaws. In Kampala, the boda-boda motorcycle taxi is the Ugandan
capital's defining symbol. In the 1960s, entrepreneurial cyclists found that
travellers would pay a few shillings to have themselves and their goods
transported across the no-man's-land between the borders of Uganda and Kenya.
>From border to border, the boda-boda was born.

 Please, your majesty, let us drive you around

Since then the bikes have become motorised. For the locals, rates are fixed, but
foreigners can expect to bargain hard and still pay far too much. But it is
worth it: weaving between cars, dodging potholes and riding along the pavement
to avoid Kampala's jams is as exhilarating as any fairground ride. And you
arrive on time, if a bit dusty.

But now boda-bodas are under threat-from the Commonwealth. To prepare for
hosting next year's summit of the organisation in Uganda, the capital is having
a makeover. A senior foreign-ministry official boasts that $300m has already
been invested in ventures to spruce things up. Pitted roads are being relaid;
smart new hotels will house an expected influx of 5,000 delegates. 

But the boda-boda is likely to be a casualty of this vast civic spring-clean.
For the government says they have become a "menace and a problem to the city
traffic" and wants them off the streets by January. The drivers-wont to lounge
in packs on street corners, attired in a random assortment of jackets and
helmets, dozing between fares and whistling at girls-say the government thinks
they are too unkempt and anarchic for the image that Uganda is hoping to
project.

Bad news for Kampala's estimated 10,500 boda-boda drivers. They can earn up to
$5 a day, whereas most rural workers earn less than a fifth of that. "This
Commonwealth will throw us out," says one. "Please, you will pray for us!" he
shouts as he speeds away, black smoke spewing from the exhaust of his invaluable
bike of burden.

 

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