International Railroad Discussion > Bloomberg: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia light rail

Almost a decade ago, the light-rail system in Ethiopia’s bustling capital of Addis Ababa was hailed as a revolutionary solution to the city’s transportation woes. Envisioned as a project that would redefine urban transport, the system promised to sweep up to 60,000 passengers per hour along its tracks.Today it sits as a daily reminder of the broken promises of China-funded infrastructure investments that swept Africa in recent years. Frequent breakdowns, inadequate maintenance funding and operational constraints mean barely one-third of its 41 trains are operational, ferrying 55,000 passengers a day, a fraction of initial projections.

[...]Addis Ababa Ethiopia Metro's Decline Shows China's Step Back From Africa - Bloomberg
 

Thanks for the link. I found an article published more than a year ago from The Diplomat, an English publication focused on issues in Asia, covering the same topic.

In that article, it's mentioned that China was willing to partially cancel the debt. But in my opinion, success isn't all about money. This is a lesson to fair-weather transportation "advocates" on TO who only argue about throwing money to solve problems.

Both articles mention poor planning as one of the many causes for the project's diminishing effectiveness, but here's an excerpt from The Diplomat's article worth considering:

According to one of our local respondents, a university lecturer in political science, this reveals yet another dimension of the problem: As long as people do not feel ownership over the infrastructure, they do not think that it is a sin when they steal “from the government.”

This excerpt is in regards to infrastructure theft in Addis Ababa, causing electricity supply problems. And people who analyze all this will realize that this can happen anywhere. Anyway, it's too bad because many people who want to use this light rail system are abandoning it, due to lack-of-maintenance-caused over-congestion and unreliability.

Great point cchan006.  Saw that plenty in a foreign country that I lived in for a few years.  Unfortunately I'm starting to see some of the same attitudes pop up in the USA these days - in some surprising places, too.

Nathan