Infrastructure

Northern Bypass Nairobi

The road is one of Kenya’s Vision 2030 infrastructure projects.

Updated on

September 15, 2023

Heavy machinery at a construction site. PHOTO | FILE

The Northern Bypass, which was built a few years ago, is one of the Kenyan government’s major infrastructure projects aimed at making the country a regional business hub.

The 31-km bypass starts from Ruaka Trading Centre along Limuru Road and overpasses Banana Road through Runda and Thome estates. The road then proceeds to Kahawa West and eventually to Ruiru, through Kamae, where it joins the Eastern Bypass.

The Northern Bypass together with the Eastern Bypass were to cost Sh8.5 billion, but the projects overshot the budget by an undisclosed percentage due to land acquisition costs.

The government of Kenya was to meet 15% of the project (Sh1.2 billion) while the Chinese government was to fund the remaining 85% (Sh7.3 billion).

The Northern Bypass road project included the construction of flyovers, interchanges, standard pipe culverts and box culverts.

China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) was the main contractor for the project.

Dual carriageway

In September 2017, a project to upgrade the road into a dual carriageway appeared forthcoming after Transport CS James Macharia said the State was preparing MOUs that would be shared with contractors to help unlock funding for the project.

“Dualling should have been done from day one. They should not have done that road without dualling it,” Mr Macharia said.

“We want to accelerate the dualling and have it done as soon as we arrange financing and that’s why we’re processing these memoranda of understanding.”

The documents, Macharia said, would provide the roadmap for the design and costing of the multi-billion-shilling project that has a two-year construction timeline.

Not much has happened since.

In January 2018, it was reported that Chinese firm Sinohydro Limited had signed a commercial deal with Kenya to expand the Northern Bypass, setting the stage for a new round of fundraising for the project.

According to Mr Macharia, the Kenyan government was hoping to obtain financing for the project by April 2018 to launch construction works by August of that year.