Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning for Coping Challenges of Urban Transportation in the Fast Urbanizing Ethiopia

Urban transportation has been one of the major ingredients in the formation of cities and their morphological setup. It is a critical element of urban life in the dynamically growing and urbanizing World. One of the major urban problem the African cities facing today is related to urban mobility with high congestion, high traffic accident and air pollution increasing at alarming rate. These problems emanate at planning and urban management levels of cities. The issue of urban mobility is toady a cross cutting issue which affects socio-economic development, the environment and the climatic conditions of not only cities but the world especially due to the carbon emission and the effect on climate change. Urbanization in Ethiopia has been longtime characterized by low level of planning. However, the country currently knows high urban growth rate. Ethiopia, still being one of the least urbanized countries in the world (17%), has one of the fastest rates of urbanization (4.34%) higher than the average growth rates of the Sub-Saharan Africa (3.95%). Planning as a tool and processes of anticipating, predicting, ameliorating and guiding future development has critical role in the future development of the country and the living condition of the population. One of the major areas that appeals for improvement is urban transportation.In light of this fast urbanization, the demand for well planned urban transportation is becoming tremendous. Given the rapid growth of towns, the complexity of urban problems and the limited capacity, due and rapid consideration should be given for efficient urban mobility planning. The main focus of this paper is to show the high urban growth and its implication on mobility. It analyzes the current and future mobility features and problems of Ethiopian cities. The paper provides elements for sustainable urban mobility planning which are urgently required for coping the growing challenges of urban transport in Ethiopia.