Matatus, plying to Nyeri County, will, in two weeks, move to the newly opened Field Marshal Muthoni Kirima bus terminus, 1.5 kilometers from the Nyeri Central Business District (CBD).

The park, launched by   President William Ruto on August 7, has 600 business stalls, five sanitation blocks, high-level water tanks, and a modern solid waste chamber.

 According to the Nyeri County Integrated Development Plan 2023–2027, the terminus will employ approximately 7,000 people daily.

This is after the county Department for Physical Planning and Urban Development announced a two-week timeline for relocating all major transport operations from the CBD to the ultra-modern bus park.

The 36 PSV Saccos will vote on Monday of next week, after which they will have a week to relocate to the state-of-the-art bus park, according to planning County Executive Committee Member and committee chairman Ndirangu Gachunia.

“The PSVs are using the terminus as a temporary parking space. At the moment, we have allowed two vehicles per sacco in each of the three old bus termini as a way of easing the congestion due to a lack of sufficient parking space. We have agreed that instead of parking in the old bus stops, PSVs park their vehicles here and wait for their turn,” said Gachunia in an interview with KNA.

“We are going to reorganise the old bus termini and close some of them. We are also going to make provisions for a circulation stage in town where drivers can drop off passengers,” he said.

2019 saw the start of the transformation of the Asian Quarter dumpsite into a cutting-edge bus terminal.

The bus terminal, known as one of the biggest bus parks in the nation, cost Kes 600 million to build.

 It was paid for by the Kenya Urban Support Programme (KUSP), a project of the World Bank that provides funding to county governments to support urban development.

240 matatu, bus, taxi, and tuk-tuk bays, 98 booking offices, 40 parking bays, 51 truck bays, and 94 passenger waiting bays are all included in the facility. Over 20,000 passengers are thought to travel in and out of the station each day.

The project was expected to ease traffic in the CBD, which is currently bursting at the seams with both humans and PSVs.

 But even after its completion in 2021, the ultramodern facility was yet to be occupied due to resistance by transport sector stakeholders.

4NTE Sacco Treasurer Gitahi Ndegwa said that the main issue that has led to this delay by PSVs is that the CBD will be deserted.

 “The other reason for resistance to the move was the inconvenience to customers because this is not the most central location and they will be forced to incur an extra cost to get to this new location, but it is too late to change,” said Gitahi Ndegwa, treasurer of 4NTE Sacco,” he said.