Urban transport challenges of developing countries: The case of Harare

Countries of the developing world are experiencing rapid urbanisation and unprecedented high growth rates in traffic resulting in detrimental environmental effects such as congestion, noise and pollution. Urban Local Authorities cannot afford to build roads to keep pace with traffic growth. The solution to construct roads is environmentally and financially not feasible. Using Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe as a case study, the paper argues that the problems arising from traffic growth in cities of the developing countries can be addressed by non engineering solutions that include travel demand management, strategic planning and the need for good governance.