City of Windhoek starts construction on EBikes4Windhoek lanes
The ground-breaking ceremony of the Ebikes4Windhoek cycling lanes was held by the City of Windhoek on 22 September to promote bicycles as an affordable mode of transport in the capital.
Dr Job Amupanda, Mayor of Windhoek said private cars and taxis are rapidly increasing in Windhoek and soon the roads will be completely congested. “In keeping with modern city trends around the world, we must build a new system which is for people rather than for cars,” he added.
Amupanda also said this is their effort to make economic opportunities more accessible to middle and low income residents, to reduce peak hour congestion and car accidents and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution associated with cars. He stated that future city roads will only be approved if these include cycle lanes.
The project to establish cycle lanes in Windhoek started when the City participated in the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) challenge with the EBikes4Windhoek initiative in 2018 and was chosen as the winning candidate for the year 2019.
The current project kicks off with 40 Ebikes funded through the Mobility Initiative as part of the prize. These will be allocated to students from NUST and UNAM’s Khomasdal campus.
TransNamib is also sponsoring two cargo containers which will modified and turned into solar powered charging and maintenance hubs and will be placed at the two campuses. During the first phase, the project will include the construction of a 4 kilometre cycling route between Khomasdal, Katutura and Otjomuise and the two campuses.
The project is implemented in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Ndakalimwe Investment, Suncycles, Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Namibia (UNAM).
