LEAPFROGGING towards GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE - a case of African Avenue

Abstract

Green infrastructure supports urban areas by linking environmental, social and economic roles of other infrastructural developments, like connecting transport infrastructures with nature. Diverse street designs provide multiple benefits, such as carbon sequestration, flood management, reduced traffic accidents, wildlife habitat, neighbourhood beautification, improved air quality, noise pollution and more related to green infrastructure benefits. Thus, this article's first objective is to explore green infrastructure benefits and identify those related to transportation. Furthermore, allocate a category of multifunctionality for African avenue/Bole Street with experts' opinions. What green infrastructure benefits do the pavement, bioswales, planter boxes, trees and Bole/African avenue road altogether deliver? The second is to see the transportation planning of Addis Ababa, first by reviewing its environmental impact on the city and second by taking the case of African avenue/Bole street, which has gone in the process of widening. Since one benefit of GI is reducing traffic accidents, this road is built to reduce traffic accidents. We checked if it reduced traffic collisions occurring on African Avenue. Its direct accidental impact, injuries sustained in road traffic collisions are gathered and compared between the years before and after the widening of African avenue. The GI value difference result indicates a considerable gap between the possible benefits the street could give and the current benefits. Transport impact on the city's environmental health is vast. Collisions on vehicles increased and the number of pedestrians affected increased; Thus, the papers suggest Addis Ababa needs to increase employed GI strategies and integrate new green infrastructure strategies to intensify multifunctionality. Moreover, the paper introduces the concept of Leapfrog and the possibility of shifting into green transportation.