Four Years Later - Did we go or did we come?

When in November 2003 I sat down to write an article about road construction in Ghana (published on Ghanaweb) my hope was that by the time it was all over, I would be proved all wrong. The title of the article was “Let’s Get it Right This Time”, and the opening paragraph read like this:

“Unless the government fails to deliver on its promise, it is expected that very soon we’re going to see the construction of four major highways - Accra-Kumasi, Tema-Sogakokpe, Accra-Cape Coast and Accra-Mamfe roads - going on at the same time. What a difference this would make in our road network when all these roads are completed and completed well. On the other hand, what happens if we should end up constructing all of them the way and manner most of our existing roads have been constructed to date?”

Almost four years later, however, it appears my worst fears are becoming real, that is, unless what I heard on a recent Peace FM morning programme was falsehood. On that particular programme, and as is common practice of Peace FM, a correspondent was reporting directly from a section on the Accra-Kumasi highway close to Konongo, where some potentially dangerous speed ramps or humps are said to have been erected. The purpose of the humps, obviously, is to protect pedestrian life by slowing down the traffic. In that report, however, from the reporter to every other person who was interviewed – drivers, passengers and pedestrians alike – everybody was complaining about the danger the humps posed to road users. Four years ago I asked if upon completion of the rehabilitation or reconstruction works sections of the Accra – Kumasi highway in particular would continue to serve as the main streets of Nsawam, Kibi, Nkawkaw, Konongo, Ejisu etc. I went on to express my frank opinion that under no circumstance should sections of a highway at the same time serve as the main street of any town. The cause of my worry, as stated then was that it was wrong for vehicles travelling between Accra and Kumasi, including heavily loaded articulated trucks, to pass through the centre of these heavily-populated towns. “Apart from the loss of precious travel time, how can we afford to ignore the danger this heavy vehicular traffic between our two most important cities poses to citizens of these towns?” I asked then. But I didn’t stop there. I went further to suggest that:

“If it should become unavoidable to route a section of a highway through a built-up area (like the Tema Motorway Extension) the road should be fenced to deny access to reckless local taxi and ‘tro-tro’ drivers and pedestrians including hawkers”.

But perhaps I shot myself in the foot when I indicated in the article that I was only expressing my opinion as a layman with no knowledge whatever of highway engineering. For as it turned out, in a society where the views of the general public are so typically ignored ‘with all the contempt they deserve’ no heed was paid to my suggestion. Otherwise, why should it be unavoidable to route a highway through town centres? For one thing, apart from connecting our two largest and most important cities, the Accra-Kumasi highway also doubles as a transit route from our main harbour at Tema to our land-locked neighbouring countries towards the north who use our ports for their international trade. Naturally, therefore, a lot of heavily-loaded articulated trucks use the road. But obviously our highway engineers, consultants and contractors see the situation differently. They went ahead constructed the road in the same colonial fashion of constructing secondary and feeder roads to inter-connect villages and towns. Too soon they came to realise that highways serve a different purpose as secondary or feeder roads. Therefore, in their attempt to choose a line of least resistance to prevent innocent pedestrians from becoming victims to vehicles which should normally not be running through their towns and villages in the first place, they decided to make sections of the road virtually impassable by constructing these hurdle-like speed humps.

Even for a layman like me I don’t require any highway expert to explain to me why constructing speed humps on major highways cannot be acceptable by anybody’s standards. But if after ignoring all reasonable safety concerns of road users to do just that we do it in a way and manner which makes virtually everybody complain then I think we have a riddle to solve. Among the people interviewed on the programme was a top official of the Ghana Highway Authority who public admitted that the speed humps in question were so poorly constructed that they are going to be destroyed and reconstructed. Mind you, we’re not talking about poor finishing in terms of aesthetics or anything of the sort. We are talking about poor job done in terms of creating danger to road users. So one may ask: based on what specifications were the humps constructed and who supervised their construction?

Do We Really Have Safety Standards on Our Roads?

Sometimes the general impression you get when travelling on some of our roads is that there appears to be an assumption that everybody who uses the roads is not only familiar with them but also travels only in broad daylight.

I had always thought that among the reasons why so much money should be spent on the rehabilitation or reconstruction of roads in the country is to ensure safety of road users and considerably reduce travelling time and by so doing improve economic and commercial activities. So what can be the explanation for constructing a good road only to turn round to erect impediments on it to make it impossible to use? Should we spend money to create bumpy roads when in actual fact it would cost us nothing to have left them as they used to be with their potholes?

We hear that there are plans to construct railway lines from the coast to the northern parts of the country in the not too distant future. Surely the trains are going to be used to convey people and goods between cities and towns, and as we know, modern trains usually travel faster than cars. So does it mean that on the approach to towns and cities the railway lines are going to have ramps or humps so that human beings can play on them?

If after doing all we can to improve the quality of our roads we are unable to considerably reduce travel time between major cities because of road humps and making unwanted excursions through towns then we would have to ask ourselves: did we go or did we come?