Super-Long Alternative Route For Motorists Amidst Nightmare Mai Mahiu Traffic

Amidst hundreds of motorists left stranded following heavy traffic that hit the Mai Mahiu highway, Kenyans have suggested alternative routes for those who are travelling upcountry for the festive season.

Photos and videos shared online showed private and public service vehicles, as well as trucks, gridlocked along the highway for hours, with preliminary reports indicating that the heavy traffic congestion started early on Thursday morning, December 21, disrupting transport on the main highway.

The situation was worsened by overlapping vehicles which closed both sections of the road in a scenario that also brought activity along the Rift Valley Escarpments to a halt.

With some motorists forced to seek alternative routes, Viral Tea explored arguably the best option to avoid the nightmare traffic scenario along the Mai Mahiu highway via Google Maps, though this is considered the longest alternative route.

Screengrab of an alternative route from Nairobi to Nakuru through Nyeri. /GOOGLE MAPS

From Nairobi Central Business District (CBD), one drives through Thika Road for 151 kilometres to Nyeri, which is a 2-hour, 48-minute drive owing to current traffic conditions.

From there, the journey continues via Nyahururu overlooking the Aberdare National Park and through the boundaries of Laikipia and Nakuru Counties before finally arriving at Nakuru.

Through this route, the journey from Nairobi to Nakuru takes almost 6 hours, covering 319 kilometres, compared to the 3 hr 32 min, 162-kilometre journey one would take between the two cities, that is, without the current traffic situation.

According to motorists plying the route, the gridlock extended to the Nairobi-Naivasha Highway at Soko Mjinga, forcing motorists to use the forest tracks as an alternative route.

“Heavy traffic on Nairobi -Naivasha Road but definitely better than Mai Mahiu Road which we escaped earlier to use this route instead. Careful of minor accidents caused by emergency braking,” noted Makena Makena.

However, some advised against this owing to the incomplete sections of the roads, and the ongoing rains across the country potentially worsening the situation.

This is the second traffic snarl-up witnessed along the stretch in a week after a similar situation left travellers stranded along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway in a traffic snarl-up at Mai Mahiu that lasted more than eight hours between minutes before 10 pm on Thursday, December 14 and the morning hours on Friday, December 15.

Reports had largely blamed the gridlock on the overlapping of motorists with some travellers expressing dissent at the absence of the traffic officers on the highway which worsened the situation as some of the matatus heading to Western Kenya also overlapped to beat the traffic.

The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) attributed this to a truck which encountered mechanical issues along the Escarpment Route (Rironi - Mai Mahiu), approximately 10 kilometres from Rironi towards Mai Mahiu.

Motorists had called for the road to be expanded to a dual carriageway to avoid similar scenarios usually witnessed by motorists ahead of the festive season.

A truck stranded along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway on December 15, 2023. /KENHA KENYA