Abstract
Walking remains the oldest and most common mode of transport making up a portion if not most or all our daily commute. However, infrastructure developments in our urban areas have a bias towards motorised transport leading to pedestrians and cyclists being the most affected in road incidents. Increasing non-motorised transport facilities in our urban centres would increase levels of walkability, reduce the number of crashes involving non-motorised transport users, reduce traffic congestion, noise and air pollution making them sustainable and more liveable. Three hundred million tonnes of plastic waste are produced annually in the world with Kenya contributing 407,506 tonnes. The waste produced shall continue to increase with increasing population, urbanisation and development. The non-biodegradability of plastic makes proper disposal of plastic waste a menace and due to widespread littering, plastic waste has become a common sight in our urban and rural areas. The conventional materials used for the construction of walkways and cycle lanes, asphalt and concrete are most ideal for the motorised transport pavements. Plastic paving blocks can be affordable, readily available and environmentally friendly making a suitable alternate construction material if adopted. This study assessed the strength of plastic paving blocks for use in the construction of walkways and cycle lanes; by undertaking a tensile strength test according to SANS 1058:2021 on samples provided by Corec Kenya. The samples satisfied all of the strength specifications and from this it can be recommended that the plastic paving blocks can be used on low traffic pavements such as walkways and cycle lanes.
Highlights
Over time road infrastructure developments have been focused on providing for Motorized Transport (MT) this is despite walking being the most dominant mode of transport leading to neglect of the majority in the modal split
Non-motorised transport users are forced to compete for space with motorised transport on the provided infrastructure leading to numerous roads incidents involving pedestrians and cyclists
The National Transport and Safety Authority reported that 65% of road fatalities involved pedestrians in 2017
Summary
Over time road infrastructure developments have been focused on providing for Motorized Transport (MT) this is despite walking being the most dominant mode of transport leading to neglect of the majority in the modal split. Non-motorised transport users are forced to compete for space with motorised transport on the provided infrastructure leading to numerous roads incidents involving pedestrians and cyclists. Pedestrians and cyclists are categorised as vulnerable road users, this is because of the lack of proper NMT infrastructures such as walkways and cycle lanes. A paradigm shift is necessitated to improve conditions for the Non-Motorised Transport users to reduce the number of crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists as well as stimulate an increase in levels of walkability in our cities and towns through the provision of proper Non-Motorised Transport infrastructure (walkways and cycle lanes). The transportation sector is the second largest contributor to emissions contributing
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