Lusaka Decongestion Project (LDP). The project is real and is expected to effectively commence within 3 months. Engineers are already on the ground undertaking preliminary works.
What is the LDP about? It’s a project aimed at redesigning the major road network for Lusaka city with a view to reducing traffic jams, travel time, travel distances and saving our precious fuel.
This is a project co-financed by GRZ (15%) and Exxim Bank of India (85%). It will take 36 months to complete.
This is a dream that is being realised this year having been conceived in 2008 when the Ministry of Local Government, it’s local authority – Lusaka City Council and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) re-planned the road network.
What are some of the salient features of the project?
- The total road works is 120.7 km with dedicated bus lanes on the middle of the road.
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Rehabilitation and upgrading of 91.4 km of ring road; There will be a new outer ring road from Kafue road (Makeni) to new Mumbwa road. It will further stretch to Lusaka West and join the Great North Road (Kabwe road) on Chikumbi road.
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There will be 4 Grade separators or top-deck roads at 4 selected points of the city, namely; Kafue road (Makeni junction), Kafue round about, Kabwe roundabout, & Arcades roundabout.
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Other 4 points of road expansion will be Church-Cairo junction, Kabulonga roundabout, Highcourt roundabout, Longacres roundabout and Mosi-O-Tunya.
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Roads such as Kasangula, Lake-Mwapona, Nangwenya, Zambezi, Alick Nkhata, Munali-Mutumbi Kamloops and Buyantanshi will be extended to 4 lanes.
Further, Ben-Bella, Kafue, Great East (kabwe roundabout-palm drive), Independence and Kalambo roads will be extended to 6 lanes.
- Modern streetlights to be installed.
For a much more detailed description of this project, People are urged to to visit the ministry of Local Government stand (MINISTRY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT) at the Lusaka’s Agriculture and Commercial Show which starts this week.
