Nairobi, Aug. 18 -- In Nairobi, 40 percent of daily trips are made on foot. You would not know it from the infrastructure. A Bill in Parliament, and a template already built in Addis Ababa, offer a way out.

Of the 4,458 people who died on Kenya's roads in 2025, 1,685 were pedestrians, according to the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA). That is 37.8 percent of all road fatalities, making pedestrians the single deadliest category for the seventh consecutive year. More pedestrians died than the combined total of drivers and passengers. They were simply walking.

The Kenya Street Design Manual, published in 2022 by the Ministry of Roads and Transport in partnership with ITDP and UN-Habitat, helps explain why. Walking accounts fo...