In Part I of this series, we traced how Addis Ababa lost control of its streets—how cultural norms, institutional decay, and physical bottlenecks combined to make the city’s roads a theater of daily dysfunction. In this second part, we outline how the city can regain control: not through more asphalt, but through accountability, design, and trust.
The blueprint that follows rests on two simple but radical ideas: delegate power to where the problems actually occur, and pilot solutions before scaling them. Rules will stick only when they are locally owned and visibly effective. What follows are seven interventions—tested elsewhere, tailored for Addis—that together form the backbone of a civic compact built on accountability and shared responsibility.
Enforce Locally, Rebuild Trust from the Ground Up
Addis Ababa’s central administration cannot micromanage every intersection in a city of six million. The first and most critical step is to decentralize authority with clear rules and accountability. The experiment should begin in three pilot sub-cities, each empowered to manage traffic in its own kebeles based on four core principles.
The first principle is clarity. Local administrations must have legally defined powers to design and install traffic-calming measures—speed bumps near schools, high-visibility crosswalks at dangerous intersections, and loading zones for markets and shops. They should also be empowered to manage minor infractions like illegal parking, sidewalk obstruction, and petty traffic violations through standardized digital citations. Crucially, kebeles must retain flexibility to adapt these interventions locally—setting up temporary no-parking zones during market hours or redesigning hazardous intersections with community input.
The second pillar is sustainability. A fixed majority of fine revenue, say seventy percent, should remain within the kebele that collected it, earmarked for hyper-local projects: signage, pedestrian islands, awareness campaigns, and maintenance. This transforms fines from punishment into visible community reinvestment—rules funding safety, discipline producing development.
Third comes participation. A community warden program can create meaningful jobs for vetted youth who serve as both enforcers and educators—managing traffic around schools, guiding pedestrians, and maintaining order. A driver fined by someone from his own neighborhood is far more likely to see the act as civic reciprocity than as state intrusion. This personal connection is how trust begins to grow again.
Finally, transparency must anchor the system. Every citation, its location, and its outcome should appear on a real-time, public dashboard, allowing residents to track enforcement and monitor how revenue is spent. Transparency is the safeguard that keeps local power from turning into local corruption.
Trust, once lost, can only be rebuilt from below. By embedding enforcement within the community, we transform it from an abstract punishment into a shared act of stewardship—a civic compact owned by those who live it daily.
Design Roads for Human Behavior, Not Ideals
Addis Ababa’s roads were engineered for a fantasy of perfect discipline; the city runs on the reality of improvisation. The goal is not to demand flawless behavior but to build an environment that guides it—and forgives mistakes. Every new road or upgrade must follow a city-wide ‘Forgiving Streets’ standard grounded in three principles: remove bad choices, clarify decisions, and unify signals.
Signs alone are not enforcement—they are suggestions easily ignored. Physical design must make the wrong move impossible. Continuous raised medians should block mid-block U-turns and direct traffic to safe turning points. No-parking zones must be self-enforcing, using planters or bollards rather than unenforced signs. Raised pedestrian refuges should allow people to cross wide roads in two safe stages.
Intersections must be simplified and standardized. Countdown timers eliminate the guesswork that fuels red-light running. Oversized lane arrows painted well before junctions prevent dangerous last-second swerves. Dedicated and protected turn lanes, separated by flexible delineators, streamline movement and reduce collisions. Finally, the city must adopt one unified system of signage, markings, and color codes so that every road speaks the same visual language. A forgiving street does not assume discipline; it builds it into the asphalt. By anticipating common failures and correcting them through design rather than reprimand, we can transform the city’s roads from stages of improvisation into corridors of predictable, human-centered order.
Professionalize the Minibus: Discipline Without Displacement
Minibuses remain the backbone of urban mobility—and the epicenter of its chaos. Their behavior is rational within perverse incentives: a driver paid by passenger count has every reason to stop anywhere and block traffic. The fix requires a fundamental shift from an informal jitney service to a regulated public transport system built on predictable stops, clear incentives, and dignity for drivers.
Each route must have formally designated stops spaced about 200–300 meters apart at logical points—market entrances, major intersections, and residential hubs—marked by poles and painted road markings. The rule is simple: passengers board and alight only at those stops. Stopping in live lanes becomes a primary offense. Enforcement should rely on both sub-city transport teams and a citizen-reporting system that allows the public to document egregious violations.
The payment model must also change. Shifting from passenger-based pay to revenue-sharing models based on completed trips removes the incentive to race and linger. Drivers that maintain compliance should receive discounted license renewals, fuel subsidies, and priority access to electric fleets through blended financing. On key corridors, transit-priority zones during peak hours can reserve curb space for compliant minibuses, rewarding discipline with faster service.
Enforcement cannot rely on police alone. Sub-city transport teams, including community wardens, should conduct random spot checks. A simple mobile-app reporting system could allow citizens to submit photo evidence of violations, adding a layer of social accountability. The goal is not to criminalize an indispensable industry but to civilize it—to professionalize without displacement. With clear rules, fair pay, and predictable stops, the minibus can shed its reputation for chaos and become a reliable emblem of urban order.
Schools as Safety Labs and Civic Classrooms
Few places display the city’s dysfunction more vividly than school gates. Twice a day, well-meaning parents in a rush turn arterials into parking lots. Fixing this requires design, management, and participation.
Each pilot sub-city should establish Safe School Zones—500-meter corridors around selected schools redesigned for safety and order. Painted “Kiss-and-Ride” bays on side streets allow timed 30-second stops. Physical barriers or planters prevent curbside parking along main roads. Raised crosswalks and clear signage make pedestrian priority unambiguous.
School communities can run their own “School Safety Corps,” composed of trained volunteers—parents, local youth, senior students—who direct traffic, guide children, and maintain the drop-off flow. Staggering school start and end times by even fifteen minutes can flatten peak congestion. Illegal parking during operating hours must trigger instant digital fines, with revenue reinvested in safety upgrades. Over time, these zones become living civic classrooms: the next generation learns order not from lectures but from daily experience.
Clear Lanes, Save Minutes: A Rapid-Clearance Protocol
Nothing paralyzes Addis faster than a single stalled vehicle, yet clearance is treated as an afterthought. Every minor collision triggers gridlock as drivers wait indefinitely for police. Observed intersections lose 12,708 vehicle-minutes daily—over 200 hours of productivity gone in exhaust.
Each pilot sub-city should operate a small rapid-response tow-truck unit during peak hours, mandated to move first and document second. Their only job is to clear lanes immediately, using cameras or smartphones to photograph vehicle positions for later insurance or legal use.
The law must back them with a strict “move or lose” rule: drivers who refuse to move their vehicles after ensuring safety face steep fines, while those who comply receive reduced penalties. A citywide “Move Over” campaign must teach that in minor crashes without injury or stalled vehicles, the legal duty is to clear the lane. Legal protection must guarantee that doing so will not jeopardize insurance or liability. Institutionalizing this discipline can reclaim thousands of hours daily and restore the city’s circulation—its economic lifeblood.
Reforming the Traffic Police: From Enforcers to Guardians of Flow
Yet none of these measures can succeed if enforcement itself remains a bottleneck. The institution tasked with maintaining order has, in many cases, become part of the dysfunction. The common sight of a driver negotiating a bribe does more than slow traffic—it corrodes civic trust. The goal is to transform police from enforcers to guardians of flow.
This requires three shifts. First, incentives must change. Officer performance should be measured by corridor flow, safety outcomes, and reduction in congestion—not ticket counts. Second, technology must replace negotiation. Body cameras and digital ticketing reduce face-to-face bargaining, while camera-based enforcement for bus-lane or red-light violations eliminates traffic-stopping stops. The cost of such technology is trivial compared to the billions lost to corruption and gridlock; transparency is not a luxury but an investment.
Finally, enforcement must prioritize movement. During peak hours, officers follow a single rule: no live-lane stops for minor infractions. Routine checks move to off-peak inspection bays; unavoidable stops use pre-marked pull-outs. Local surveys already show that many violations are settled informally—replacing negotiation with evidence is how credibility returns.
Restore Licensing Integrity: The Foundation of Trust
At the foundation of our traffic system lies a quiet rot: the corruption of the driver’s license. When a license becomes a purchasable commodity rather than proof of competence, every other rule—every traffic stop, every safety campaign—becomes theater.
Licensing reform must rest on three pillars. First, the test must regain real-world rigor. Mandatory on-road recertification every three years filters out incompetence and forged credentials. The test route and grading rubric must be standardized and public, leaving no room for arbitrary discretion—the very space where corruption thrives.
Second, rogue driving schools must be regulated and purged. Regular audits and public ratings empower citizens to choose quality instruction. Any school issuing fraudulent certificates must be closed permanently and its owners barred from the sector.
Third, transparency must be total. A monthly Integrity Bulletin should publish names of revoked licenses, sanctioned schools, and disciplined officials. A professional cadre of well-paid, monitored examiners ensures that competence—not connection—determines who drives. Competence is not elitism; it is the social contract between driver and public.
Pride Over Penalty: Making Stewardship Viral
Lasting change will not come from fines and fear alone. A cultural shift must make citizens stewards of their streets. This requires deliberate campaigns that make discipline visible, celebrated, and even entertaining.
A “Hero Driver” initiative can commission murals at accident-prone intersections celebrating courtesy—a driver yielding to a pedestrian, a child crossing safely. Monthly civic awards, promoted on radio and social media, can recognize drivers nominated by peers for patience and respect. In parallel, use humor, music, and social media to make civility fashionable—especially among youth. The #SelmataAddis challenge invites TikTok and Facebook users to post funny skits or short videos celebrating the “most patient driver in Addis.” Small rewards—like mobile credit or recognition—can turn courtesy into social currency.
Lastly, turn public space into a canvas for civic pride. Neighborhood “Our Street” competitions can invite kebeles and local artists to design and paint their own crosswalks or murals, with winners receiving improvements like benches or trees. Local “Traffic Ambassadors”—shopkeepers, elders, respected figures—become friendly enforcers, gently modeling good behavior and reminding others that order is a shared achievement, not submission to authority. When pride replaces penalty as the driver of behavior, stewardship becomes viral—and civility, contagious.
The Road Ahead: A Phased Covenant
This is not an all-or-nothing revolution. It is a phased reconstruction of our civic covenant—beginning with pilots in willing sub-cities and scaling what proves effective. The annual cost of our road disorder already exceeds $3 billion—the equivalent of three Corridor Projects lost every year to dysfunction. Restoring order will cost far less. What it requires, above all, is courage: the courage to delegate, to experiment, and to demand accountability at every turn.
If Part I was about the tragedy we created through indifference, this is about the future we can build through intention. Roads are not just asphalt; they are the living measure of our civic maturity. Addis Ababa can remain a theater of exhausting improvisation—or become a model of African self-governance.
The choice is ours. The power to repair what has been broken lies exactly where the breakdown began—with us, at the intersection of privilege and responsibility. The tragedy of our roads was man-made; their redemption can be, too.
Tsegaye Nega is Professor Emeritus at Carleton College (USA) and founder & CEO of Anega Energies Manufacturing, an Ethiopian clean cookstove enterprise.
Contributed by Tsegaye Nega
