African is rising narrative hinges on the notable infrastructural development, correlated to the supposed global focus on Africa. There in is subsumed but controverted radical public service reforms upon which infrastructure development is taken as sine quo none for economic development. However in some literature, this link is viewed as spurious or not clearly understood. This paper takes the view that mega infrastructural rollout as being implemented in Kenya is not a guarantee to economic development. While it seems from the offset that taking a macro-economic view to analyse a micro-economic result is untenable, an investigation of a causal relation between a newly constructed road and the nature and types of economic activities that may have been spawned by the highway could give some insights on the impacts of new infrastructure on livelihoods of ordinary people. It demonstrates that the expansion of a major road in Kenya has followed a familiar path expounded by other studies that question infrastructural development as a strategy towards uplifting incomes, as it is assumed that manufacturers will establish industries along newly opened corridors. Drawing from an empirical study in Kenya, this paper affirms that service businesses and not manufacturing industries, are the most beneficiaries of such infrastructural expansion. The article include several survey results on road side traders along Thika Road in Nairobi to give some indications of thrust of the argument.