ABOUT two weeks ago, a 15-member delegation, led by Mr Joe Gidisu, the Minister of Roads and Transport, left this country on a three-nation tour of two continents — Europe and America — with one mission, and that was to see how the Bus Road Transport (BRT) system operate in those countries.
The study tour, as that trip could be appropriately described, took the team to the United Kingdom, Brazil and the Republic of Colombia.
To ensure that nothing escaped notice, the composition of the team was structured such that it had politicians, who are the decision makers; technocrats and bureaucrats, who are implementers; and media practitioners, including a disc jockey, who are the eyes and ears of the general citizenry. That may be an indication of how serious we are about the BRT.
Some people have argued that the nation could have cut down cost by inviting a few experts from those countries to come and spend a few days here to impart their knowledge and experience to our engineers and politicians instead of that huge delegation criss-crossing the globe.
I think seeing is believing and it is, therefore, proper that our people, including the minister responsible for the transport sector, saw with their own naked eyes what BRT means and how it has contributed to the free flow of vehicular traffic in major cities like London in the United Kingdom, Curitiba in Brazil and Bogotá in Colombia.
These are cities that share certain characteristics with Accra, our capital city. I am referring to both physical size and population. If, therefore, the BRT system is working to near perfection in those cities, making intra-city transportation fast and easy, then there is no excuse why Accra, and for that matter any Ghanaian city, can be different.
As if God is on our side to make sure that the study tour was not in vain, three major funding institutions, namely the World Bank, Agence France Development and the Global Environment Fund, according to Dr D.D. Darko of the Department of Urban Roads, have released US$95 million to support the country’s Urban Transport Project. The BRT, according to Dr Darko, is a major component of the urban transport project.
The truth is that Accra is a choked city, neither because it is bigger than any of the three cities mentioned earlier, nor could it be imagined that it had more vehicles plying its streets than those of the aforementioned cities. The fact is that, the three countries — UK, Brazil and Colombia — have bigger economies than ours and their citizens are wealthier and consequently, as could logically be expected, have more vehicles on their roads.
The sad truth, however, is that our city authorities abandoned city planning many years ago. Where roads were to pass, according to city maps, has been taken over by other structures, including buildings, container shops, kiosks, hotels and whole markets. A distressed motorist could be driving on what appeared to him to be a road until suddenly he is confronted with a huge gate of a mighty house.
Apart from clear cases of encroachment on city lands, most Accra roads do not measure up to the standard of many major cities of the world. They are narrow, poorly constructed and easily consumed by floods after the slightest drizzle.
For a city like Accra, the roundabouts are just too many. We still have roundabouts at strategic intersections like Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Obetsebi-Lamptey Circle, when there should be flyovers to distribute traffic smoothly and to give beauty to the capital.
The Tema end of the motorway is a clear example of how our planners and political leaders have been overtaken by events. This was a motorway which was constructed nearly 50 years ago and that roundabout was created when residential areas beyond Michel Camp on the Accra-Ho road and settlements beyond the roundabout on the Accra-Aflao roads were not in existence. That roundabout should be upgraded to a flyover to ease the headache of motorists during rush hours.
We failed and made a mess of the Tetteh-Quarshie project, when we wasted precious money that did not bring any relief to motorists or add any aesthetic beauty to the city. What we have now is a poorly designed road project which people mistake for an interchange. That jungle does not befit the great name associated with it.
I am sure those who returned from the three-nation study recently would tell us what an interchange really is and whether Tetteh-Quarshie qualifies to be called one.
The police barrier on the outskirts of Tema, known as Jerusalem Gate in those days, has now become like a bridge that has been swallowed up by the waters of a river. The best place to situate that barrier now should be beyond Afienya. As it is now, the Jerusalem Gate is a Gate of Hell that adds to an already bad situation in the mornings and evenings.
Accra is our national capital and the country’s largest city, which must be given proper facelift to make it live up to that status. All roads leading to Accra should be developed into multi-lane carriageways.
Most major cities have alternative transport systems for commuters to choose from — rail, underground and road. We are poor, so we claim to be, so we shall not be thinking of the underground now. Our railway system has been rehabilitated verbally several times without concrete action.
The BRT system is the cheapest among the various alternatives and this is one area we should not fail the people of this country. As Dr Darko indicated, we can start with some of the heavy traffic routes like the Adenta-Madina-Legon-Accra, Kasoa-Mallam-Kaneshie-Accra and Tema-Nungua-Teshie-Accra routes.
The system, as the delegation found out during its study tour, is already working in many countries. Let not its introduction here become a mere talking shop, where daily assurances would be given without any serious action. Let us not use the greater part of the US$95 million and other funds that may be secured in future, on feasibility studies, meetings, workshops, seminars and education campaigns to the detriment of the project itself.
The same middle pavements which Dr Darko stated would be used to develop the BRT lanes can also carry trams, if the authorities will begin to factor that into their plans for the future.
My heart missed a beat when I read what Dr Darko said, that the government was upbeat about the project and that work was being done at different levels to ensure that the project took off in the next couple of years.
That was where my fear lies. Once it is not immediate, but in “a couple of years”, I know we are in serious trouble and we may end up in one of those high-talking projects that end before it begins. We have built enough castles in the air. I wish this time, we have the BRT on the ground.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
Kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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