| dc.description.abstract | In many Central Business Districts (C. B.D.)
conditions of pedestrians have been getting worse, and show
no prospects of improvement. People tend to get pushed
under or over roads or squeezed on the edges. These
problems of pedestrians in the C. B. Ds are contributed by
several factors, among them is the rapid urbanization of most
cities, the high growth rate of car and human population,
and lack of commensurate infrastructural facilities. The
resultant urban environment lack a sense of security,
community and belonging which are pertinent to psychic
development of man.
The C. B. D. of Nairobi was planned to cater in full-
ness of time for a population of 250,000. Only a small
percentage of this population were envisaged to visit the
C. B. D. With the same infrastructural facilities meant for
250,000 people, the population has grown to 1,400,000 with
less restriction to visit the C.B.D. On the other hand, the
number of vehicles planned for the C.B.D. was 30,000. This
has lncreased by tenfold to 300,000 without increasing the
roads to the same traffic intensity ..
The aftermath of this changes is the carnage of
pedestrians and material damage arising from traffic accidents.
The number and severity of traffic accidents in the C. B. D. has
been increasing rather rapidly since independence in the C. B. D.
This thesis attempts to examine the problems of
pedestrians in the C. B. D. of Nairobi. It borrows a lot from
the field of environmental psychology, sociology, architecture
and other related subjects. Its contention is based on the
premise that planning pedestrian traffic involves a better
understanding of pedestrian behaviour and their perception of
the urban environment.
Within the study, efforts have been made to establish
the actual pedestrian flow in the pavements, the relationship
between building structures and pedestrian circulation and the
causes of the prevalent pedestrian-vehicular conflicts.
The study has however established that pedes tr lans do
infact walk considerable distances and spend a lot of time in the
C.B.D. It has unearthed that there are many activities other than
movement that takes place on the walkways to warrant
conduicive street environment in order to cater appropriately
for the pedestrian convenience. The study has established that
the pedestrian-vehicular conflicts in the C. B. D. are contributed
by the street design and rapid urbanization of Nairobi but not
the drivers or pedestrians negligence. Finally an attempt is
made to rationalize the relationship between the growth of
pedestrian traffic, vehicular traffic and the structural changes
in the building structures in the C. B. D. by setting out policy
for pedestrian movements in the C. B. D. of Nairobi | en_US |
