Nairobi Northern Bypass Highway

Nairobi Northern Bypass Highway is a road in Kenya, the largest economy in the East African Community. It connects the neighbourhood of Ruaka to the neighborhood of Ruiru, both in Kiambu County.

Location
This road starts in the Ruaka neighbourhood, approximately 16 km, north-west of the central business district of Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya. From Ruaka, the road travels in a general easterly direction through Runda. It briefly crosses into Kiambu County, passes above Kiambu Road, re-enters Nairobi County and continues to Marurui in Kasarani. At Marurui, the road takes a north-easterly direction, crosses Kamiti Road, then passes through Kahawa West and the Kenyatta University Hospital and re-enters Kiambu County at the Kamiti River bridge near Membley Estate and Kiwanja (Nairobi County) neighbourhoods. It ends at the intersection with the Nairobi Eastern Bypass Highway in Ruiru OJ neighbourhood. The highway measures approximately 21 km, from end to end.

Overview
This road is one of the four bypass highways built to direct motorized traffic away from the central business district of the city of Nairobi, to alleviate the perennial traffic jams on the city streets. The bypass highways include (a) Nairobi Western Bypass Highway (b) Nairobi Eastern Bypass Highway (c) Nairobi Southern Bypass Highway and (d) Nairobi Northern Bypass Highway. It is one of these four bypass roads that form a 96.7 km ring-road around the city.

Construction
The highway was constructed between 2009, and 2014, as a two-lane, single carriageway road. The work was performed by China Road and Bridge Corporation. Work on this road together with the 32 km Nairobi Eastern Bypass Highway, was budgeted at KSh8.5 billion (US$85 million). The funding for both these roads was as illustrated in the table below.

Expansion
In 2018, the Kenyan government contracted Sinohydro Limited to convert the Nairobi Northern Bypass Highway to a four-lane dual carriageway with culverts, drainage channels and walkways on both sides. It is estimated that dualling the Northern and Eastern Bypass Highways will cost anywhere from KSh30 billion to KSh40 billion (US$300 million to US$400 million). The process is on-going, as of March 2019.