Old Taxi Park to be closed for three months to allow for renovation

At least 200,000 people operating in the old taxi park will have their businesses disrupted for a period of three months as the facility undergoes renovation, Kampala Capital City Authority has announced.

“The scope of work will include excavation and disposal of the existing material, installation of underground drainage lines, rock fill, construction of new foundation layers for the carpet and surfacing of the constructed layers with tarmac,” KCCA said in a statement on Friday.

According to KCCA, the new surface will have markings to delineate areas for parking and for taxi and pedestrian movements, whereas the boundaries of the taxi park will also be retained properly to prevent mud from washing onto the carpet as had been the case.

“There will be lighting and some waiting sheds for passengers. The park will have designed entry and exit points for both vehicles and pedestrians and will have access control to avoid queuing on the surrounding roads and congestion within the park.”

The renovation works to be undertaken by Stirling Civil Engineering Limited and Kiru General Services Limited will see sanitary facilities such as toilets, an administration block and police post constructed.

The works that according to KCCA will commence today May,9 and will last for three months will see more than 200,000 people  who use the taxi park daily affected .

“In case the lockdown ends before the works are completed, KCCA shall provide alternative parking areas for the taxis as was with the construction of the new tax park.”

The oldest taxi park in Uganda’s capital has for long been in a dire state but efforts to renovate it have always been frustrated by  taxi operators who argued that they had not been consulted.

Two years ago, KCCA announced they had got a shs4.3 billion grant from the Netherlands government to renovate the old taxi park.

In 2018, KCCA said the new face of the facility will see a multi-level parking building in  Old Taxi Park but according to the latest statement, no mention of the same has been done.

It also remains to be seen whether the worries expressed by taxi operators of losing parking space will come to pass as it was with the redevelopment of the new taxi park .

The renovation of the new taxi park a few years ago saw taxi drivers left with only 40 percent of the space they had  previously occupied.

The latest  development comes at a time the Ministry for Kampala announced plans to improve the transport system in the city.

The move will see taxis and boda bodas banned from the city for a period of one month after the expiry of the lockdown as reorganisation continues.

During this period all taxis will be registered and those that dont meet the required standards will be kicked out of the city whereas gazetted taxi parks will also be registered.