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district and the kopje area can topple into total gridlock.
Medium term solutions are obvious.

The council needs to buy out a handful of stands so Nelson Mandela Avenue can be driven through to Rotten Row, thus allowing pure one way traffic using Nelson Mandela and Jason Moyo Avenues right across the city centre to Fourth Street.
Land swops need to be arranged with the National Railways of Zimbabwe so a bypass can be built south of the railway, all the way from Enterprise Road South to Simon Mazorodze Road, to relieve the appalling and eternal congestion at the intersection of Julius Nyerere Way, Seke Road, Kenneth Kaunda Avenue and Charter Road.

But there are cheap and simple things that can be done in days to remove many of the choke points and at least allow traffic to flow, if slowly, in and out of the city centre during even the busiest times.
Starting in the north and east, and moving south and west, we suggest the following:
The switch from one-way to two-way traffic along Nelson Mandela at Fourth Street creates the worst choke point at the eastern gateway to the city centre.
The stretch of that avenue between Sam Nujoma and Fourth Street should be re-marked to allow two lanes to turn left at Fourth Street, one to go straight ahead and just one to turn right.

On the other side, re-marking again could allow two lanes for west-bound traffic to turn right.
The traffic lights need adjusting to allow freer flow and traffic in Kwame Nkrumah Avenue needs to be banned from crossing Fourth Street to prevent that dangerous block.
The worst northern choke point is the intersection of Tongogara Avenue and Sam Nujoma Street.

The lights need to be changed so that in the mornings east bound traffic have a dedicated time in each cycle to turn right and in the evening west-bound traffic can turn north.
At the same time, some tar on that stretch of Tongogara outside Prince Edward would allow two lanes in each direction and connect properly a whole batch of north-south routes.
Samora Machel Avenue needs to be revamped. It is the best through road.

The weird traffic lights at the intersection with First Street are possibly the worst choke point and something needs to be done; in the evenings traffic from those lights backs up almost to Fourth Street in one direction and Chinhoyi Street in the other.
The narrower stretch between Leopold Takawira Street and Rotten Row needs to be widened to the three lanes in each direction that pertains on each side of those narrows.

It would also make sense if the stretch from Enterprise Road to Fourth Street could be widened to the standard three lanes each way since three arterial wide roads are channelled into that section.
In the kopje area especially, but the rest of the city centre would also benefit, proper bus stops off the carriageways need to be set up and kombis forced to use them to pick-up and drop off passengers.

Roads are narrow there, but not that narrow. Kombis must retain the right to use the roads, but must not be allowed to block them.
There is no short-term solution for unchoking the horror where Julius Nyerere meets the railway. But if other routes are freed up many drivers will divert, relieving the congestion.
Drivers, in general, need to think about their routes. Where possible everyone who can should avoid the city centre. Through-traffic should be routed around the centre.

This includes drivers on the east side wanting to go west to think about driving north all the way up to Josiah Tongogara, which can be easily unblocked with an axe and a new set of lights.
It means drivers on the west going out to Rotten Row and then swinging across on a northern route when they want to go east.

The city planners and the police traffic experts have the skills and the knowledge to make traffic flow a lot more easily in the city centre.
They know the worst problems and the worst choke points, and if they do not, they can find out quickly.

Working together these two groups could quickly make a significant difference with just a few pots of paint to re-align road markings and a couple of sets of new traffic lights.
The city council itself then needs to commission a proper study to work out the best way of unjamming the city centre, probably through bypasses on each side so that no one even thinks about trying to cross the city

centre, just drive in and out of it from one side to get to and from work, business or shopping.
A street plan designed for a few score ox wagons is never going to allow proper traffic flow of thousands of cars. But it can cope a great deal better if the council uses the expertise at its finger tips and on its pay roll.