Transforming Bole Road in Addis Ababa to Improve Safety and Accessibility
In Addis Ababa, road traffic crashes kill more than 400 people every year. This is largely due to unsafe street design that prioritizes vehicles over pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users. With the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), WRI has been helping the city redesign its streets to improve safety and accessibility, particularly for vulnerable road users. Such improvements are also fundamental to encouraging active, low-emission mobility and to fostering an environment of steady foot and cycling traffic that is conducive for local businesses.
After conducting several road safety inspections across the city, WRI found that Bole Road, a 4.4 km-length thoroughfare that links the airport with the city center, was one of the most high-risk corridors. In 2015, the team began working with the city to identify problems and implement design changes for a safer, more accessible and more efficient road.
Bole Road has four wide lanes in each direction. It runs through developed areas where safe accessibility for pedestrians and other users is important not only for their mobility but for local businesses and economic activity.
Before WRI’s intervention, Bole Road had a roundabout and signal-controlled intersection at both ends but no traffic stoppages in between (two grade-separated roundabouts and one overpass bridge serve the crossing and turning traffic). Despite the lack of intersections, this stretch still had 31 at-grade pedestrian crossings. High-traffic congestion frequently occurred at the grade-separated roundabouts above the road and at the two ends. In the first year of its opening to traffic in 2013, the road registered 10 deaths, 55 severe injuries, 131 minor injuries and 1,419 property damages due to road traffic crashes.
Dangerous Crossings
Since Bole Road is in a developed area, many pedestrians need to cross the road at any given time. During peak hours, WRI found that more than 500 pedestrians were crossing the road at 15 of the 31 crossings. Among these, four crossings served more than 1,000 pedestrians during peak hours.
At the time of inspection, WRI measured the average speed of traffic up to 48 kph during midday. Local crash data showed that the lack of giving priority to pedestrians was cited in 43% of serious injury cases registered by authorities. Data also showed that crashes between vehicles were concentrated at junctions and U-turns, a result of drivers encountering vehicles that were joining or turning on the road at uncontrollable speeds.
The design of the road - wide carriageways and lanes and grade separation of crossing roads - encouraged higher speeds, and the 60-kph speed limit was not enforced. Asking pedestrians to cross this kind of road without proper safety measures was essentially a death trap.
Inaccessibility and Network Inefficiency
The limited availability of safe access points for both pedestrians and vehicles on Bole Road affected both residents and businesses. Most of the surrounding roads in the area were underutilized due to lack of connectivity. Drivers stayed in long lines just to cross Bole Road or to make a U-turn.
Efforts made to accommodate turning and crossing demands with U-turns also affected the efficiency of the road. To make a U-turn, drivers had to occupy one lane of the carriageway from which they were turning and disrupt traffic on two more lanes when coming into the other carriageway because of the narrow median.
A road developed for efficient movement of vehicles was providing service equivalent to a two-lane double carriageway road: two lanes taken for U-turns and one lane for public transport stops, leaving only one lane available for uninterrupted mobility. Many buses and paratransit vehicles operate on the road, and more than half the city relies on these services for their daily trips, according to a survey done by the city. But accessing this public transport was dangerous for pedestrians. Crossing the road to catch a bus or to reach a final destination after arriving at a stop carried very high risk. The lack of designated stops along the road also meant that vehicles often halted abruptly to pick up or drop off passengers, further contributing to the road’s inefficiency.
Bole Road’s Transformation
To address these issues, the city made key design improvements to Bole Road based on WRI’s analysis and recommendations:
Pedestrian Signals
Improving pedestrian safety required solutions that calmed traffic speeds as well as allowed pedestrians to make safe crossings. Pedestrian signals have been provided at three mid-block crossings to call for red lights based on the availability of pedestrians detected through the touch button. This allows pedestrians to cross safely and vehicular traffic to continue uninterrupted when pedestrians do not need to cross.
Негізгі бет DRIVING AFTER THE RAIN FROM FOREIGN AFFAIR TO BOLE, ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA/AFRICA/
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