It makes economic sense to name streets Street names should be big enough and readable
 Street names should be big enough and readable

Street names should be big enough and readable

The Arena Hildegarde

So much has also happened in the housing sector since 2014, with the past two years seeing an exponential growth of housing units, in line with one of the Zim-Asset clusters. Thus, the Harare Street Atlas 2013-2014, though useful, is already dated.

STREET names and numbered buildings are that important even for Zimpapers, where newspapers are delivered at homes and/or offices.

The cost effectiveness of these deliveries depends on how long it takes for the drivers and/or vendors to deliver the newspapers. Where it is easy for them to identify the suburbs and streets, it also means that the turnaround time is shorter.

A fortnight ago, I wrote about the “horror of nameless streets”, and promised to bring to the readers views from various stakeholders including Harare City Council, the Department of the Surveyor-General that deals with the production of maps for our cities, and members of the general public.

To a certain extent, it became an exercise in futility, since the desired responses were not forthcoming from the major stakeholder in the exercise, and it became more or less like navigating around an area with nameless streets.

The situation with the Department of the Surveyor-General was quite understandable. When the questionnaire sent to their two emails bounced back, the writer called in order to get another address, but was informed that the system was down, and the only way I could get responses was to print the questionnaire and submit it to the responsible person, and wait for the answers.

It was different with Harare City Council where the first questionnaire was sent to the relevant officials on June 19, and follow-ups were made, without success. The questionnaire was resent on June 24, but at the time of going to print, some of the following questions had not been responded to:

1. How many suburbs does Harare now have – high, low and coops?

2. How many of these have street names, complete with signage?

3. Where streets are nameless and/or signage is not there, what are the reasons, and what is the local authority doing about it?

4. What is the impact of nameless streets on council business and others business entities, considering that the city is working towards a world-class city status?

5. Who is responsible for street naming and what criteria are used to name streets, including the names allocated, etc?

The writer is grateful to a Harare delivery company whom we cannot name for professional reasons. Delivery of goods and services to homes, offices and other organisations is one of their core businesses.

I asked them how the phenomenon of nameless streets affects their business not only in Harare, but countrywide; and whether their delivery guys take longer than expected because they cannot locate the street, even when they have a map?

Their response was: “In our industry, time is of the essence as it is a major component of our costing. The challenges that we frequently encounter are mostly pronounced in new suburbs that do not even have proper road networks let alone road or street names,” they said.

They added: “Before any of our trucks leave the depot, in order to improve on turnaround time, the driver has to check the address on the atlas maps/books that we have. Unfortunately, these maps only show old suburbs and not the new ones.

“The word ‘new suburbs’ are difficult to define as some of them have been in existence for years. The first thing is that the driver will waste time trying to search for something that is not there in the first place.

“Then, there is the issue of calling costs as we will end up calling the client for directions, mostly on mobile phones. In most cases customers may give you directions to a certain point where they will then ask our team to wait for them so that they may lead the way to their residence or organisation. This leads to further delays as the team usually gets to the point before the client does and, incur further phone costs calling to get the client’s position. The truck and team may end up only doing one job when they could have done more.”

Inasmuch as we can talk about GPS and/or Google maps, it is also important to note that a large number of people and/or companies cannot afford these latest gadgets. For Harare, the latest Harare Street Atlas, which is designed and compiled by Street Savvy, is the 2013-2014 edition.

You also have to part with $30 to get this hard copy. How many companies, local authorities, Government departments can afford this?

So much has also happened in the housing sector since 2014, with the past two years seeing an exponential growth of housing units, in line with one of the Zim-Asset clusters. Thus, the Harare Street Atlas 2013-2014, though useful, is already dated.

But how do high and low densities compare? Is it any better in the leafy suburbs? The picture painted by the delivery company was not that rosy as they said: “For our export business, which is mostly dominated by the diplomatic community, we do what is called a ‘survey’ where we set an appointment with the client for one of our sales team to visit their residence and view the goods to be exported so as to ascertain the volume and nature of packing required.

“Being diplomats, these clients are pressed for time, and are mostly found in the plush suburbs like Borrowdale, Highlands, etc, where you would think that things are in order. But in these areas, you struggle as roads signs are either faded or non-existent.

“If you are lucky you may find a street name marked on a residential pre-cast wall, but half the time it is not readable. When the streets are not named it is difficult to meet your appointment and, you may end up losing the business as the client will view the delay as a sign of lack of organisation on your part. We end up asking our sales teams to leave work much earlier in order to cater for the difficulties in finding the correct location leading to loss of productive time for the organisation.”

They also indicated the dangers that one is likely to face: “The lack of road signs may lead to accidents as one spends time and concentration on finding a road sign and counting road turns after consulting with an atlas book.”

In their view, what is the best way forward, and how should the responsible stakeholders address the issue?

They proffered the following suggestion:

“We would appreciate if we have the new SADC signs we see in some parts of the central business district, being put on all streets. Names should be big enough and readable.

“We also suggest that, where possible, the city should ask residents to assist with numbering on their gates or walls so as to cut short on the time spent on counting households before our drivers identify a household.

“All new suburbs should be added to the atlas book with speed to help people in locating them. We are not advocating for the impossible. All we need are clearly labelled or marked road signs and numberings that even a shortsighted person can comfortably read.”

They also made suggestions to the City Fathers, which can be incorporated within the framework of the laws of the land:

“It would be helpful if the City Fathers put up signs indicating the name of the suburb as you enter it, as this is very helpful. This is not a new thing but used to be there, but has for a long time been discontinued.”

Another reader suggested that all local authorities do a Brexit from the colonial street names, which give an impression that Zimbabwe is a little part of Britain.

Mr Tichaona Chinake of Mufakose said: “This is very embarrassing. Have we run out of words in our indigenous languages? Why should council not invoke what it used to do in the past – calling for suggestions of names from the people, and then it would pick the names and recommend to its parent ministry for approval?

“We feel that this is looked on as something very minor, but it has very fundamental consequences, and what we do not know is that we can actually build/develop Zimbabwe through that.

“We have the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Heights just before Kambuzuma suburb. Why not take the names of people who worked with Umdala Wethu as a way of preserving his persona, and the history of the country? Colonialists were not just giving names. The names they gave were actually mirroring their communities in the UK in order to sustain their history.”

All this was triggered by how my Form One classmate, Esther Makoni, got a whole class kicked out when she asked the Geography teacher Mr Edward Kadzere the essence of studying map reading when all she wanted was to become a nurse. The whole class agreed with her, but years later, I see myself writing about the importance of street naming.

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