Strategies for getting Abidjan out of its traffic jams

More than 65 million euros: this is the budget that the Ivorian authorities have decided to devote to the rehabilitation and expansion, currently under way, of several of the city's major roads. One of Abidjan's main thoroughfares, boulevard de Marseille, will be upgraded with the help of an enlargement plan over 13 km of the boulevard and improving connections with adjacent roads.

The government is also building several new roads and bridges to improve traffic flow. The construction of a fourth bridge over the Ebrié lagoon to link the communes of Plateau and Adjamé with Yopougon - the city's most populous district - is the central project of the programme. Scheduled for completion in 2020, the bridge and associated roads will be used by hundreds of thousands of people every day, significantly reducing traffic congestion on existing roads.

A major advantage that will benefit the Ivorian economy. Indeed, the movement of goods between the port of Abidjan and the industrial zones around the capital will be smoother, as will trade with Côte d'Ivoire's neighbours, Burkina-Faso and Liberia.

But how can residents' daily journeys be made easier? Over the past few years, Abidjan has seen an increase in informal means of transport, collective taxis called woro-woroThis was to the detriment of bus use, which fell by 2 %. Although considered inefficient and lacking in capacity, these forms of transport by bus or boat-bus could nevertheless represent a solution for developing urban mobility.

Société des Transports Abidjanais (SOTRA) has undertaken to extend its bus and boat transport services with new water busesThe company is aiming to introduce more boats, more lagoon stations and a larger bus fleet to improve passenger traffic in the city. The company is aiming to have 50 additional boats with a capacity of 200 to 250 passengers in service by 2020, as well as 2,000 new buses, while private operator Société de Transport Lagunaire (STL) is also stepping up investment, with the aim of having 45 boats in service by 2020, compared with 16 at present, serving 10 stops on the lagoon.

Once these investments have been made, the authorities are counting on a capacity of 70,000 passengers a day for the water buses. By then, the city's almost eight million inhabitants will no doubt be able to count on a new infrastructure made in France: the city's new metro.

The 37.5-kilometre line will comprise 20 stations, 21 road-rail bridges, a viaduct bridge over the Ebrié Lagoon and 40 pedestrian footbridges. The project will link the town of Anyama, in the northern suburbs, to the commune of Port-Bouët, in the south of Côte d'Ivoire's economic capital. It will also make it easier to get around Abidjan by enabling the two ends of the journey to be made in 50 minutes, where it still takes several hours with the monstrous traffic jams that paralyse the capital every day.

The Abidjan metro should eventually be able to transport "530,000 people a day180 million passengers a year between the north and south of Abidjan"According to the President of Côte d'Ivoire, Alassane Dramane Ouattara. Funding for the €1.4 billion project is being provided by the French government, and the work will be carried out by a consortium comprising Bouygues Travaux Publics, Alstom and Colas Rail. Some 2,000 workers are expected to be involved.

The capital has also announced its intention not to stop at this first stage. In February, the authorities announced that they were working on a project for a second metro line. This would link two popular districts, Yopougon and Bingerville.

The African Development Bank, which is financing a budget of more than 500 million euros for modernising Abidjan set out the priorities: "improve traffic flow, reduce the number of road accidents, strengthen urban management, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gases, recycle waste and increase household income". A programme tailor-made for the "Paris of West Africa".