Africa's transportation capacity is currently beholden to
road transport: According to the U.N., 80 percent of goods and 90 percent of
people are moved via motorized vehicles—leaving many of Africa's sprawling
urban hubs stuck in bumper-to-bumper gridlock. And as Africa's cities continue
to grow, investing in alternative modes of transportation will only become more
crucial.
The rehabilitation of old colonial-era railways is gaining
steam across Africa. Over 220 miles of the Uganda-Kenya railway, which broke
ground in 1896, will be revitalized by 2017. Ethiopia, meanwhile, is expected
to reopen its 450 mile colonial-era rail line in early 2016. Nigeria, Africa's
most populous country, is also getting into the mix. The West African nation
invested $166 million to get old trains back up and running between Lagos, a
megacity of over 20 million people, and Kano, an ancient city 700 miles to the
north. A modern light rail network will open in the capital city of Addis Ababa
in February. Once completed, this system will connect to a rehabilitated
countrywide rail service. For the first time in history, the Ethiopian capital
and various secondary cities will all be connected by rail. Migrants, freight
services, and prospective businesses will gain access to a web of cities under
a more integrated rail service. Africa's traditional urban centers—like Nairobi,
and Accra—are unlikely to be the big winners of an expanded rail network.
Instead, it's Africa's secondary cities—with populations ranging from 500,000
to 5 million—often neglected and overlooked by developers, that stand to gain
the most. Offering secondary cities more equitable rail transportation is vital
because their populations are exploding. 70 percent of Africa's urban growth
through 2050 is projected for secondary cities—growth that must be buffeted by a
national rail service.
For decades mismanagement and decay rendered the railways to
rust and overgrow with plant life. A 2011 report co-authored by the World Bank
and the African Development Bank found that $3 billion was needed to modernize
Africa's railways; the latest revitalization efforts represent a mere fraction
of that need. Nonetheless, the projects symbolize a major shift in the
continent's transportation infrastructure and planning. Rather than creating an
interconnected network of cities, as modern railways often do, colonial rails
simply connected resource-rich hinterlands to the coastline. The final
destination along the port is where goods (and people) were ultimately shipped
off to Europe and beyond. Not surprisingly, this is where Africa's major urban
centers grew. African countries generally boast a single major city, which is
almost exclusively located along the final destination of its colonial railway
network. Africa's mid-size cities away from the coast, meanwhile, essentially
developed in isolation—from the rail infrastructure and the commercial benefits
that came with it. A 2014 working paper from Oxford University found that
cities in Kenya that developed near rail networks were not only denser but also
wealthier. So by refurbishing and ultimately expanding aging rail networks,
Africa's once closed-off secondary cities could finally become integrated into
nationwide rail networks and reap the accompanying rewards.
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