KCCA has made ready a road map to be followed in reopening the old Taxi Park, after one year of renovation.
Working behind schedule as earlier annoyed by KCCA to reopen the park, the authority contracted Sterling Civil Engineering and Kiru General Services to renovate the park.
However the completionof the park later since it was supposed to have been completed in August, for the Works that started in May 2020.
However, works continued with KCCA saying that contractors were affected by the lockdown and curfew that was instituted by the government to control the spread of the Corona Virus. This slowed works since they worked for a few hours.
KCCA contract engineer Joel Wasswa also said that the heavy rains also affected the progress, especially during the excavation stage.
According to plan, KCCA has worked on the carpet or floor of the park, was to install 15 shelters measuring 1.5 meters where passengers can sit or stand to wait for taxis and construct two walkways.
The park is designed to have two entry points and one exit along Ben Kiwanuka Street.
Also, five designated pedestrian entry points from Burton Street and along the Non-Motorized Transport corridor on Wilson road.
KCCA further planned to install lights in the park and also renovate the three buildings there to accommodate a KCCA office and toilet block for the park.
Currently, the carpet is almost complete with only a small section covering stages of Kyambogo, Bweyogerere, Banda stages and others are yet to be paved.
The drainage system in and around the park was to be constructed and the sheds put up.
The park is expected to accommodate 344 taxis. The operators were asked to find land to work as a waiting area for taxis before they come into the park for loading.
When works started at the park, about 400 taxis that operated there were relocated to other parks. However, due to their large numbers, hundreds have continued to operate on the streets.
They park at Burton Street, at Nakivubo Mews and Mini Price. Although there were already some taxis at these locations, the number increased significantly when works at the park started.
We are now to see how the completion and operation, of the taxi park is going to being sanity on those impassable streets, crowded by taxis that park along them.
