The massive felling of trees on Waiyaki Way to allow it's expansion has elicited criticism from members of the public.
Hundreds of youths were on Saturday night deployed to cut down the trees along the busy road to allow construction works by Chinese Wu Yi Company who won the Sh16.4 billion tender to expand Waiyaki Way to a six-lane highway.
The trees were planted in 2008 as part of the Programme to beautify the City, an initiative by then Environment Minister John Michuki.
“I was one of the people employed as a casual labourer to plant trees along this highway. It’s so sad to see the trees being cut. We need the road, but not all the trees should have been cut. Some of them were far from the road,” Tom Makina said as reported by the Star.
The exercise prompted a traffic snarl-up on Waiyaki Way, which stretched to Kinoo shopping centre.
Efforts to reach Nairobi County Environment executive Peter Kimori for a comment did not go through.
According to Kenha director general Peter Mundia, the expansion exercise will jointly be funded by the World Bank and the government under National Urban Transport Improvement Project.
“The section of the road from James Gichuru Road to the Mai Mahiu junction will be expanded. It is expected to take 36 months. A resettlement action will be carried out in the next two weeks before construction begins,” he said.
The road expansion is expected to ease traffic flow in and out of the city and is one of the three major projects earmarked to decongest the Northern Corridor.