There is a promise hovering over the immobile traffic on Thika Road, and it takes the subtle and ambitious form of a viaduct. President William Ruto has announced that work will begin in September 2026 on a new expressway of about sixty kilometers, intended to connect Thika to Museum Hill, in the heart of the capital. Traffic on Thika Road is a form of forced meditation: you enter young and exit wise, with a longer beard and shorter hopes. Now William Ruto promises to give time back to the living by building a new expressway that should run above the daily resignation of hundreds of thousands of commuters.
He said this during a religious service in Ruiru, a place that knows well the daily price of waiting. “This traffic jam, after Githurai, causes disruption all the way to Museum Hill. I have a plan,” he explained, implicitly evoking the most visible and controversial precedent for his infrastructure vision: the Nairobi Expressway that now connects Westlands to Jomo Kenyatta Airport.
Those who travel along that elevated road know the almost surreal feeling of crossing Nairobi without touching it. Below, the city continues to exist, with its stalls, its matatus, its peanut sellers, and its sudden resignations. Above, however, you glide away, paying a toll that is both a privilege and a shortcut.

The new expressway to Thika promises something similar, but on an even larger scale. Sixty kilometers to restore fluidity to one of the country's most congested arteries, crossed every day by hundreds of thousands of workers, students, truckers, and dreamers who are always late for their appointments.
The project did not come out of nowhere. Already during the Jamhuri Day celebrations in December 2025, Ruto had announced his intention to build this new infrastructure, recognizing that urban growth to the north had transformed Thika and the surrounding towns into a vast dormitory suburb of Nairobi.
It is the natural fate of African capitals: to grow faster than their ability to breathe.
But like any big promise, this one also brings with it doubts and questions. The Motorists Association of Kenya has already expressed its opposition, arguing that the Thika Superhighway, as it stands, already meets international standards for an expressway, with no intersections, traffic lights, or roundabouts. According to them, the problem is not the road, but the growing number of vehicles and urban planning.
It is a difficult objection to ignore, because it raises a broader question: does building new roads solve traffic, or does it simply invite it to grow?
And then there is the more sensitive issue, the one that is rarely spoken aloud but which everyone thinks about. The Nairobi Expressway has shown that speed comes at a price, and that price is not for everyone. Many continue to travel below, amid the noise and patience, while those who can afford it pass above.

This does not mean that the infrastructure is useless. On the contrary, it has become an essential component of the city's economic functioning, reducing travel times for commercial transport, facilitating connections and, in a sense, restoring value to time.
Great roads do not eliminate inequalities, but they can reduce the friction that prevents a country from moving forward.
The government has also announced other significant investments in Kiambu County, with over 15 billion shillings earmarked for the upgrading of local roads and another 22 billion for the doubling of the Pangani–Denderu road, in addition to improving the link between Kamakis and Kiambu town. At the same time, work continues on the Nakuru–Nairobi highway, particularly on the Rironi–Mau Summit section, which is expected to be completed by June 2027.

It is a mosaic of asphalt that tells a clear story: a Kenya trying to keep pace with its own growth.
Of course, any infrastructure of this scale comes at a cost. Not only economic, but also political. Taxpayers wonder how much it will weigh on public finances, and for how long. Voters wonder whether it is a necessity or a promise.
And yet, there is something deeply human about these roads that do not yet exist. They are a form of institutional optimism. A way of saying that the future is still negotiable.
President Ruto seems to want to believe that Kenya should not resign itself to its traffic, nor to its immobility. That growth is not a curse, but a technical challenge. That a way out can be built, literally.
Perhaps the new expressway will mainly serve those who can afford the toll. Perhaps it will really ease traffic for everyone. Perhaps it will do both, or neither.
But in a young country, where the future always arrives too soon and too crowded, even the promise of a road can be a form of movement.