Two bridges to cross, from Adjiriganor to La

By Kofi Akordor
Accra’s traffic situation is now a matter of concern to all. It started many years ago, but as a result of inaction and the lack of foresight, the problem has been allowed to fester and today everybody is wondering whether there is going to be any remedy.
A survey carried out by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) which was captured by the Daily Graphic in its Wednesday, December 5, 2007, issue, under the headline, “Crisis Looms”, painted a gloomy picture of the traffic situation in the country, especially the nation’s capital.
According to the survey, we are not far away from the situation when vehicular traffic will choke the streets of Accra, bringing it on level terms with what is happening in such mega cities as Lagos in Nigeria and Beijing in China.
The negative effects of traffic jams are quite obvious. To start with, they are counter-productive, since the long hours wasted in traffic affect productivity, not to talk about the physical exhaustion which one experiences in traffic which goes nowhere.
There is also the problem of pollution, which was captured in the DVLA survey. The longer vehicles stay on congested roads, the more the pollutants they emit into the atmosphere and into the nostrils and eyes of pedestrians and other motorists who may not be lucky to be driving in air-conditioned vehicles.
For a country which depends heavily on imported fuel, it is unfortunate that this important and expensive commodity should be allowed to go waste in traffic just trying to cover a shot distance to the workplace. Already, figures released by the Bank of Ghana indicate that the country spent roughly US$2 billion on crude oil imports alone last year.
The question is, why have we allowed ourselves to be caught in this horrendous traffic jam when something could have been done long ago? The truth is that Accra has experienced tremendous expansion over the last two decades or so, without a corresponding improvement in road development. A place like Macarthy Hill, which a few years ago was dotted with a few buildings, is now a first-class residential area. Beyond Macarthy Hill are new residential areas such as Weija, Aplaku, Kokrobite, Ablekuma and other areas along the Accra-Winneba road. In fact, Kasoa, which is administratively part of the Central Region, is umbilically tied to Accra.
Incidentally, all these settlements mentioned continued to use the old single-lane Accra-Winneba road to and fro and the consequent traffic jams had to be experienced to appreciate its enormity and how frustrating it was.
The new dual carriageway from Mallam to Kasoa and beyond has brought some improvement to a bad situation, but even with it the peak hours always have registered heavy traffic on this busy road, either because the engineers have underestimated the volume of traffic or the arteries which should distribute vehicles going to the various residential areas have not been well-developed.
Accra’s phenomenal development is not limited to the western part alone. The eastern part, which links Accra to Tema, has experienced such rapid development that city planners have been overtaken by events. As stated earlier, we would not have come to this desperate state if our governments had been proactive and backed our urban planning engineers with the necessary support to design and develop new road networks to take care of the city’s rapid growth.
Today, as things stand, vehicles coming from La, Teshie, Nungua, Tema and its numerous satellite residential communities must necessarily use the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange if they are going towards Legon, Adjiriganor, Trasacco Valley, Madina, Adenta, Ashale Botwe, Dodowa and beyond. In the same way, those coming from the above-mentioned places to Tema and the new settlements along the Spintex Road up to the Sakumono Estates, La, Teshie or Nungua must, without any alternative choice, come all the way to Tetteh-Quarshie before selecting their routes, which, at the end of the day, are circuitous, winding and heavily jammed with other commuters.
Separating these two sets of new and emerging residential areas is the almighty Accra-Tema Motorway. At Tetteh-Quarshie, one has to determine whether to use the Motorway before branching into an unapproved route to Communities 13, 14, 15 17, 18, 19 and 20 or use the Spintex Road and suffer the consequences.
For those going to La, Teshie and Nungua the other alternative is to drive all the way through the Airport area, through the Burma Camp Road to join the Accra-Tema Beach Road for those continuing to Teshie and Nungua.
Unknown to many, it will take only one bold decision on the part of the government to get this big problem solved. Even though, according to a top official of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), there were no plans for flyovers on the Motorway at its conception, plans have now been made for three of these flyovers. One has already been provided at Ashaiman, linking it to Tema and Accra and the beneficial results are there for all to see.
The other two, which, to a large extent, are of bigger significance, are to be sited near the Accra Abattoir and the Manet Estate. These two, which have the answer to the heavy traffic on the Spintex Road and at the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange and which can remedy the plight of residents of Adjiriganor, Trasacco Valley, Madina, Adenta, Ashale Botwe and beyond, are still on the drawing board because of the much-heard refrain, “lack of no money”.
This is where the government must exploit private participation in the provision of some of these essential facilities.
Incidentally, a private estate development company, Trasacco Estates Development Company (TEDC), which, apart from its social responsibility, has its corporate interest at stake, has made a proposal to the government, as was reported on page 49 of the Daily Graphic of Wednesday, January 9, 2008. According to the story, the company, in several memoranda to the government, had offered to pre-finance and construct the Motorway end of the flyover which, according to estimates, will cost US$20 million and the cost recouped through two options the government must choose between.
The first option is that the company and its affiliates must be given tax breaks so that it could raise the funds for the project. The second, which sounds reasonable to many people who were asked for their opinions, is the build, operate and transfer (BOT) option.
The government may not be too comfortable with the first option which involves the state losing some amount of revenue needed immediately for development. The same, however, cannot be said of the second, which will make the state and the people the ultimate gainers.
According to the drawings, this flyover will pass through several settlements on the eastern corridor, finally ending at the International Trade Fair Centre at La. Immediately, the advantages of this flyover can be well-imagined. All the areas from Madina, Adenta, Ashale Botwe, East Legon, Adjiriganor and Trasacco Valley will be opened up and linked to the eastern part of Accra, without necessarily using the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange.
It will also mean that those in La, Teshie, Nungua and the communities along the Spintex Road could link up with their counterparts on the western part of the Motorway without joining the heavy traffic to the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange.
Even though the Department of Urban Roads has indicated its intention to construct an access road near Community 18 to link the Motorway, that, at best, can only offer temporary relief. The bigger and greater problem will still be hanging on our necks.
Accra’s problem is not about too many vehicles plying the roads; it is about too few roads coming under pressure to give space to our vehicles.
The government cannot do it alone and so where private sector participation is possible, those in authority must not hesitate to take the necessary decisions. The country is lagging seriously behind in development simply because decisions which should be taken today are postponed to tomorrow or they are never taken.
If we do not have US$40 million to build the two flyovers, let us start with one now! The most important thing is that the parties involved will negotiate in a candid and mutually satisfactory win-win manner so that at the end of the day the people of this country are saved from undue hardship, while the integrity and sovereignty of the state are not compromised.