All eyes seem to be on the Light Rail Transit (LRT). As it applies its final finishing touches, it grabs the attention and hope of each and every resident of the city. Since the announcement of the project in 2011 and the commencement of construction in January 2012, the construction has remained the talk of the town.
The rail construction team from China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) came to Ethiopia for the construction of a 31km double-track electrified light rail with a 475 million dollar contract, as phase one of the total of 75Km, which was planned for the city. The Export Import (EXIM) Bank of China extended 85pc in loans, while the government of Ethiopia covered the remaining 15pc.
The two-line rail tracks extend 16.99Km from east-to-west, stretching from Ayat Village to Tor Hayloch, passing through Haya Hulet, Urael, Meskel Square and Lideta. On the north-to-south route, a 16.7Km rail track will pass through Piassa (Menelik Square), Addis Ketema, Awtobus Tera, Sebategna, Tor Hailoch, Meskel Square, Gotera to the Kaliti Training Centre. The two directions will share a common track of about 2.7km. The construction of the railway is taking place in three ways: 23km on ground level, 7.33km of bridge construction and 0.9km through underground tunnel construction.
Since the commencement of the project, it has passed through many steps and reached the final points and it is expected to be inaugurated in the coming two weeks. The rails and the trains will be tested for three months before being operational. Before the railway is going to be inaugurated, the Chinese contractor is fencing the two side of the rail tracks to separate it from the asphalt lanes.
The project is well underway: Nevertheless, the issue of pedestrian and car crossings seems to raise concerns among the public. People either jump over inconvenient barriers or walk a long way to cross over the rails; cars have to drive even longer as the former turning points have been blocked by the fence.
“We are fencing the area to protect accidents that might occur to people,’’ said Dereje Tefera, communications director at the Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC).
Daily labourers of the LRT project have started fencing the road with a yellow and grey combination coloured plastic material that was imported from China a month ago. The material has 1.2m height and 2.4m length and has been under installation along the Sierra Leon Street and Asmara Road for the last one month. Shop and restaurant owners located along the two roads were taken by surprise after they realised the fences separate one side of the road from the other side, which also blocks their customers coming from the opposite side of the road.
“We knew that it would be fenced, but we did not realise that it would be fenced without leaving space for zebra crossing,” said Elsabeth Zewde, saleswoman of Gazz Floor Tile and Terrazzo Factory located on Asmera Street in front of Civil Aviation University on Tuesday January 13, 2014.
It is a common complaint heard throughout the 10 businesses who sell construction input materials located at the same place of Gaaz. The shops sell paint, cement, tiles and terrazzo, and marble. Understandably, all of them are angry, losing customers who visited them from the opposite side of the road as there is no a crossing road near their shops.
“The day after the fences were installed, the number of customers who visit us significantly decreased,” said Elsabeth. “Recently, days without any sales are becoming common,” she complains.
Gaaz’s manufacturing plant is located on the opposite side from its shop. The factory is located behind Civil Service University, 200m away from the sale shop.
“We use our shop as a display for our products and when the customers select the one that appeals to their interest, we take them to the factory for the full order, but following the fence, none of the buyers are interested to go to the factory, which now requires them to walk for over one kilometer,’’ she added.
The installation of the fences will cover all the 31Km rail way by having a space at 39- points that are reserved for rail stations. Among the 39 stations, three of them are found in caves, nine of them on bridges and 27 on the ground that can also be used as zebra crossing for the pedestrians. The average distance between two stations on the east-to-west route is 0.8Km and on the north-to-south route 0.78Km, which becomes challenging for people to cross from one side of road to the other.
On the north-to-south route, the main stations and zebra-crossings will be at Kaliti, Abo church, Dama hotel, Saris Gebeya, Nifas Silk, Gotera, Lanchia, Meshualikiya, Stadium, Coca-Cola Mazoria, Lideta and Tor Hailoch. The zebra-crossings and stations on the east-to-west route will be at Ayat, Meri CMC, CMC, St. Michael church, Civil Service College, Salite Mihret church, Gurde Shola, Megenagna, Lem Hotel, Haya Hulet, Urael, Estifanos, Stadium, La Gare, Mexico Square, Lideta, Abinet, Sebategna, Merkato, Atikilt Tera and Menelik Square.
This long difference between zebra crossings is a source of frustration for the management of Kaldis Coffee Chain’s 16th branch located on the Sierra Leon Street that was almost completely deserted on the afternoon of Tuesday January 13, 2014. The Kaldis coffee chain is best known for fully occupied tables during the non-working hours. But now, the fence has blocked the pedestrian crossing, which was located in front of the coffee shop and created a challenge for the customers coming to the coffee shop from the opposite side of the road.
“We are looking for another building for rent, preferably one located near a zebra crossing,” said Michael Getu, head waiter of Kaldi’s Lancha branch. This branch has been in the area for the past six years on the ground floor of Alpowlo Building.
The construction cutting into the crossing makes it difficult for the coffee chain, whose proliferation of green-coloured logos has created a new scene in the capital in recent years by extending its branch to 21 across the city.
“For the past couple of years, the average daily revenue of the coffee shop was 12,000 Br but after the installation of the fence it has gone down to 7,000 Br,” Michael told Fortune.
Rohbot Juice is located on Sierra Leone Street and the area locally known as Riche. Most of Rohbot’s customers are from the opposite side. Most of the customers are boutique owners on the other side of the road. We used to receive 10 fruit salad and juice orders per day from each of them. But in the last three weeks, none of them have ordered fruit salads and Juices from us, said Genet Melesse a cashier at Rohbot that is owned by her brother Fantu Melesse.
Following the decline in demand from their customers, Rohbot cut the amount of fruit purchase they made every four days. They used to buy four quintals of avocado, 2.5ql of banana and two quintals of papaya but since three weeks ago, the quantity declined to two quintals, 1.5ql and one quintal respectively.
“We heard there will be overpass crossings nearby, so we hope that might be a solution for the problem we are facing,’’ said Genet.
Officials of the ERC seem clueless on how to solve the problem faced by the businesses.
“We give priority to solving the problem of transportation,” Dereje told Fortune. “For now we will have 27 stations that will also serve as zebra crossings; and looking into the problems after the project starts giving services, we will evaluate the problems and we will work on the solutions then,” he added.
The ERC seems to be practicing a method of trial and error on the LRT,’’ said a consultant, “They think of solving the problems after the problems are already experienced.”
“The ERC should learn from the experience of the ring road,” said same consultant. “The ring road has no crossing for pedestrians and vehicles, so the road is experiencing many accidents as many people jump the fences to cross the road.”
A committee organized from ERC and Addis Abeba City Road Authority (AACRA) are conducting a research for crossing points for both vehicles and pedestrians according to the agreement they reached in 2012. And they are on the preliminary design of nine overpasses for crossings to be located at Meri, two at Gurdeshola, Lem Hotel, Kality, Saris Riche and Meshulalkeiya.
“We are still in the preliminary design and we have not yet identified where the overpasses will be located,” said Behailu Sintayehu, project manager of the LRT.
The project is expected to start service in the coming three months while the issue of the overpasses is not yet settled while Genet of Rohbot is hoping the overpass is a solution for the market problem they are facing.
Feti Yesuf, is a shop owner running Shima Electronic, located on the road that extends from Mesqel Square to Kaliti, the end of the north-to-south rail route. His store sells mobile phones, stoves, ovens, and spare parts for the aforementioned electrical equipment for the past 10 years. Just a few days after the launch of the construction, he began witnessing what he had predicted.
There was a noticeable decline in customers since the beginning of this month, with hardly any walk-in customers coming to visit him. This was caused by challenges the pedestrians faced in crossing the road as well as the drivers who come from the other side of road and cannot cross.
“I am considering two things as a solution; one is to change the area and the other is to transfer the shop to another person,” Feti said.
He paid rent for six months in advance and he has only used two months, which is the main reason for him to leave the place. This is also a source of challenge for him as many of the people offer less price for the shop, which is below his expectation.
I do not know what I will do, but most likely I will change my shop to another place, Feti said.
The other business that is facing the challenge is Berhan International Bank’s branch located at Saris near Kaliti Customs Branch Office of the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority (ERCA). The branch was opened 18 months ago with the aim of serving its customers who went to ERCA. But six months ago, the business began declining as the place was fenced off for construction.
The staff of the bank were delighted when the fence was removed two months ago, assuming their business will once again flourish, but it did not last long as the area was fenced again by the yellow and grey plastic two weeks ago.
The yellow and grey fence has already made it difficult for Berhan’s customers to visit the Bank, especially when they come from Saris. To get to the bank, they have to drive until Gotera and turn right towards the road side where the bank is located, which takes 20 minutes to 30 minutes. The narrow street has been made into a one-way street, so that traffic from Gotera to Kality has started get congested.
If customers can endure the traffic, they will still face a parking problem, since the space in front of Bank cannot accommodate vehicles as the initial two lane road has become a one lane road following the construction of the rail.
“In the six months since the LRT fenced the area, we have not been getting new customers, in addition our customers prefer to use another branch rather than coming here to avoid the hustle of crossing the road,” said a worker at the Bank.
Starting to feel the heat, most tenant business owners on the two roads extending from Ayat to Megenagna and Mesqel Square to Kality decided to put forward a solution by vacating their shops.
“It is true that businesses are bearing the impact,” states Almaze Ayele, who rents six businesses on the side of her house at Saris. She rents the shops to boutiques, cafés, mobile phone retailers and spare parts retailer. “When the road was fenced, the shops had very few customers, making it look like a holiday,” she added.
“My husband and are aware that questions may be raised about loss of revenue due to less customer flow, but we did not consider their request of lowering rental prices,’’ she said.
While the businesses are in doubt of what to do, the LRT is on the way to start operations with the 41 trains operating on 75 volts of electricity. Each train is 30m long with 64 seats and has a 2.65m width with a capacity to accommodate six to eight people in one square metre of space. In total, the train will be able to carry 286 to 317 passengers at a time and travel at 30Km to 40Km an hour, although it has a maximum speed of 80Km per hour.
An electronics trader told Fortune that the revenue he reported to the Ethiopian Revenue & Customs Authority (ERCA) declined from 40,000 Br a month down to 14,000 Br, although the store appeared to make much bigger sales than that. But none of the businesses that Fortune talked to have taken their cases to the authorities, including the ERCA. The Authority, too, has not yet examined the impact.
“It is obvious that businesses may be affected while constructions are taking place and cause decline in sales,” said Beker Shale, director general of the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority (ERCA).
How much businesses have been affected will be determined only after assessments have been made, he added.
Leave a Reply