A Tale of Two Bridges

The city of Niamey sprawls over the Niger river but only has one bridge, the Kennedy Bridge, built by Americans and completed in 1970. Sometimes it's best to keep your eyes closed when crossing it, as it's only one narrow lane in each direction and vehicles are always swerving back and forth between the lanes to negotiate the obstacle course of pedestrians, bikes, motorcycles, carts, cattle, goats, and camels. When accidents happen, which they do fairly regularly, you usually have to cancel any plans you may have made to do something on the other side of the river since traffic comes to a standstill on one the city's busiest arteries and it always takes hours to clean things up.

This week they officially broke ground on a second bridge, which will have two lanes in each direction and will divert most of the traffic that is just passing through Niamey en route to (or from) Burkina Faso, which currently has to go through the center of town. It's hard to imagine that the new bridge won't be hugely beneficial in terms of improving the flow and safety of local traffic.

One interesting detail is that a Chinese company is responsible for constructing the new bridge. If you follow African news, you know that an important subplot to contemporary African development is the role of the Chinese. Chinese firms are doing good business all over Africa these days, and there's a lot of angst among Western leaders (and especially the former colonial powers) about the growing Chinese influence in the region. In addition to this bridge, I've heard that the Chinese have become big players in Niger's uranium industry as well. I suppose if you're somebody who's concerned that the rise of China poses a threat to American influence in the world you'd have trouble finding a more potent symbol than the big, shiny new (yet unnamed) Chinese bridge diverting traffic from the decrepit inadequate old Kennedy Bridge.