Cheap Asian bikes are transforming African cities | World News

The rise is driven by supply and demand issues. Brands from China (such as Haojue) and India (such as Bajaj) are cheap enough for the average African rider. Some have set up assembly plants in countries such as Togo and Angola. Many have signed deals with finance companies that will provide loans to pay for the wheels. Some are now selling electric bikes as well.

The United Nations estimates that Africa’s urban population will nearly double from 491 million in 2015 to 966 million in 2035. Walking in sprawling cities can take hours and be dangerous without sidewalks. Motorbikes are cheaper than car taxis (about half the price for the same distance) and often faster. One study found that the average car commuter in Lagos spends 30 hours a week stuck in traffic jams.

About a third of taxis carry freight, connecting small towns and rural villages. According to the OECD (a group of mostly wealthy countries) research project Africapolis, in 2020 there were 8,784 African metropolitan areas with more than 10,000 inhabitants, up from 2,360 in 1980. Motorbikes make it easier to travel between cities, reducing the average distance between two metropolitan areas to 20 kilometers from 35 kilometers 40 years ago. Connectivity with other modes of transport is one of them.

Motorcycles are essential to the informal economy, which accounts for 86% of employment in Africa. “If you took away motorcycles, the economies of most sub-Saharan African cities would collapse,” argues Roger Behrens of the University of Cape Town. With Africa’s working-age population growing faster than formal employment, motorcycles are a major source of employment for young men (only 1% of drivers are women). In Kenya alone, there are at least 1.5 million riders, accounting for more than 50% of the civil service.

Some impacts are less welcome: Motorbikes make noise, increase air pollution and cause accidents. Africa is home to 3 percent of the world’s motorized vehicles (of all types) but accounts for nearly a fifth of global road deaths, according to a report released last month by the United Nations’ World Health Organization. Motorbikes are a big part of the carnage.

In Kampala (Uganda’s capital), Lagos (Nigeria’s commercial metropolis), and Maputo (Mozambique’s capital), only about half of drivers wear helmets, and passengers are even less likely to do so. According to the WHO, only eight African countries have “best practice” helmet laws, and these laws are often poorly enforced. But Rwanda requires that both drivers and passengers wear helmets, and does actually enforce the law.

Governments in Ghana and elsewhere have banned motorbike taxis multiple times. Some big cities in Senegal, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire have banned them because they’re linked to crime. In other cases, politicians simply see them as a nuisance, getting in the way of their own cars, which are often large SUVs. “These bans can sometimes be very personal,” says Tom Courtright, a Nairobi-based researcher and co-author of the FIA ​​Foundation report.

But bans tend to be circumvented or repealed. This is in part because large groups of young people can be politically influential and therefore cannot be ignored for long. Indeed, some political parties have tried to incorporate riders as ready-made youth wing. But the main reason bans don’t work is that there are simply no good alternatives for millions of Africans looking to move.

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