Residents of Athi River, Machakos County have called on the Rift Valley Railways management to provide them with a commuter train to Western Kenya.
Led by Johnston Wamalwa, the residents said the hiking of fares by public transport vehicles during the festive season was a big blow to them arguing they could not afford the charges.
“The fares are just too exorbitant to most of us to afford as we have large families and many goods to transport, reason of this call to be provided with commuter train to Butere through Kisumu town,” said Wamalwa.
Wamalwa who said he had a family of ten who wanted to go celebrate the Christmas festive season with his extended members of the family, friends and relatives said they had waited for long for the fares to go down only for the contrary.
Early in the week, another group of residents had faulted Public Service Vehicle (PSV) operators of taking advantage of the high number of Kenyans travelling across the nation to hike the fares.
Wamalwa who spoke to the press yesterday said the situation if not controlled will deny most Kenyans especially of low income earners their travelling rights to go spend time with their loved ones up country.
The residents called on the government through ministry of transport to speedily come up and regulate the industry given that fuel costs had reasonably been brought down by President Uhuru Kenyatta.