Public transport crisis; commuters complain bitterly

Richmond, a pupil of the Flagstaff House Basic School in Accra, lives at Haatso - a suburb of the city. He leaves home at 5:30am every morning for school. For a distance of less than six miles (8.85 kilometres) -- which should take a standard 23minutes by road --Richmond spends one and a half hours in traffic every morning before getting to his final destination.

When school closes at 5pm, it takes him an hour of waiting time to get “trotro” for his return journey. Then, the traffic bares its teeth on the 37-Adenta Road. “I get home at about 8:30pm almost every day,” he says.

Lydia works around the 37 Hospital area and spends two hours daily in traffic commuting from Madina to 37. “I leave home around 6:30am and it takes me two hours to get to work. When I close in the evening at 5pm, there is always heavy vehicular traffic and it takes me three hours to get home,” she says.

Another commuter said: “I also live at UN in Madina. I leave home at 7:30am and I get to 37 around 8:30am. The traffic has come to stay with us. I do struggle to get a car from Madina to 37 and vice versa”.

Yet another commuter told the B&FT: “When you wake up, you see a lot of people coming from Madina to Accra Central and the same happens in the evening. If in the next four or five years we all purchase vehicles, I really don’t know what will happen.”

The sentiments of the four persons typify the frustration of commuters and drivers over the growing congestion of the central business district and other major enclaves in the capital.

A few years ago, there was talk of creating a dedicated bus lane for the eventual operation of an efficient public transport system. However, that noble idea has not seen the light of day. The Metro Mass Transit Company since its establishment has helped to solve some of the commuting challenges in the capital -- but it’s just a small part of the solution.

The failure to have a clear policy decision and direction for developing an efficient public transport systemhas meant that more and more people are resorting to the purchase of private vehicles for their personal comfort and ease of moving within the capital.

The result is a surge in vehicle population every year, especially in the two largest cities of the country, Accra and Kumasi.

Part of the problem has also been attributed to the concentration of important public institutions in central Accra. “I think that if some of the government offices are relocated from central Accra it will help,” a commuter told the B&FT.

There is also the problem of delay in completing major roads in the capital. For instance,the Legon section of the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange-Aburi Road has been left undone, causing needless traffic-jams on that portion of the road.

Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority (DVLA) data show that the number of cars on the country’s roads increased by nearly 23 percent between January and December last year.

The number of vehicles registered was 174, 234, and at the same time the DVLA inspected about 946,284 vehicles for road-worthiness, bringing the total vehicle population in the country to nearly a million, with concentration in Accra and Kumasi.

A recent study in Kumasi revealed that mobility of people is restricted due to traffic congestion, causing excessive travel delays -- particularly during peak hours -- and negatively affecting productivity.

According to the findings, the average mandated nine hours a day that people work in the formal sector was reduced by 52.8 minutes -- representing an average 9% loss of productive hours a day, or loss of over two working days in a month.