New four-lane road beckons for Arusha city

Arusha. A four-lane road will be constructed in Arusha in a move aimed at easing the flow of traffic in the fast-growing city.

The 9.3-kilometre road will see the expansion of part of Dodoma Road, which is notorious for congestion of vehicles.

"Construction will begin once the tendering process is finalised," said Reginald Massawe, the regional manager of the National Roads Agency (Tanroads).

The new road will connect the Arusha Technical College (ATC) with the Arusha Bypass at Kisongo through the Dodoma road.

"The cost will be known once the tendering process is over. But it won't take long before implementation of the project commences," he told The Citizen.

He added that the construction of the road was among the measures taken to decongest the city, whose road network cannot cope with the increasing vehicular traffic.

It is also part of the measures taken by the sixth-phase government to improve the road sector by constructing new roads and bridges in the Arusha region.

In the past three years, the tarmac road network in the region has increased to the current 478km from 425km in 2021.

"Major projects have seen the construction of new roads and bridges in various parts of the Arusha region," he told journalists on Friday.

Mr Massawe attributed the successful implementation of road projects to increased budgets in the sector, especially in road maintenance.

"There has been a notable increase in the maintenance budget, hence a significant expansion of the paved road network," he pointed out.

According to him, the past three years have seen the region carpet some 53 km of trunk roads (which are under Tanroads) with tarmac.

"Additionally, over 152 km of roads are currently undergoing tarmac construction," he said in a media briefing in his office.

These include Mianzini-Ngaramtoni Juu (18 km), Karatu-Kilimapunda (51 km), and Mbauda-Losinyai (28km) roads.

Two of the roads, Mianzini-Ngaramtoni and Mbauda-Losinyai, connect Arusha city with neighbouring Arumeru and Simanjiro districts, respectively.

The Karatu-Kilimapunda road connects Karatu town with the Lake Eyasi basin, which is increasingly becoming a tourism hotspot.

Tarmac roads whose construction has been finished include the 49-km Wasso-Sale, Tanganyika Packers-Bypass (one km), and a 3-km road at the Usa River.

The regional Tanroads boss also outlined major road projects in the pipeline that will connect Arusha with other regions.

It includes the 453-kilometre road that will connect Arusha city with Kongwa district in Dodoma through Simanjiro and Kiteto districts.

The proposed Arusha-Kibaya-Kongwa paved road will open up the vast Maasai steppe plains, whose economic potential has started to emerge.

With a vast rangeland there, the economic potential includes modern livestock keeping, dryland agriculture, and a high potential for tourism.

Another proposed road network in the pipeline is the one that will connect Karatu in the Arusha region with Maswa in the Simiyu region.

The 339-km highway will connect the two towns through Mbulu, Haydom (both in the Manyara region), the Sibiti River (Singida), and Lalago and Maswa in Simiyu.

Mr Massawe could not state the level of implementation but noted that it is among the strategic road plans of Tanroads.

Besides roads, projects that have been completed in the past three years in Arusha include the construction of bridges at Nduruma and Kimosonu.

Others are the installation of lights along the key Arusha-Namanga, Arusha-Minjingu, and Kijenge-Usa River roads to enhance safety and visibility among motorists.

In recent days, Arusha residents have begged for expanded roads in order to ease the flow of traffic and reduce accidents.

This was more so after a recent tragedy in which 25 people died along a stretch of the busy Namanga road.

"Arusha needs four-lane roads to reduce the chances of vehicle collisions. Many roads are too narrow to cope with the traffic," said Allan Mosses.

The 14-kilometre Arusha-Tengeru highway and the two-kilometre Afrika Mashariki road are the only existing four-lane roads in the famous safari capital.