Sunyani targets more revenue from car parking

The Sunyani Municipal Assembly is to cast its revenue net wide to argument its current Internally Generated Fund (IGF) through a proposed car parking management project -- expected to fetch about GH¢609,408 annually from a projected 1,058 parking spaces, if successfully implemented.

The project incorporates spaces for short- and long-term parking within the Central Business District (CBD) and on its outskirts in Sunyani. City Authorities have earmarked areas like behind the Sunyani Municipal Police Station, Victoria Park, forecourt of the Post Office, and Jubilee Park as potential locations for long-term parking. It has been proposed that GH¢0.30p will be charged per hour.

All forms of parking will be barred along major roads in the city, including horizontal and 60º angled parking; and these will be managed based on parking duration to promote smooth traffic flow along indefinable streets within the CBD. The project will be interlaced with a coordinated design approach to signage and street furniture on 21 streets. A two-month public education campaign starting from October this year has been a prelude to implementation of the Public Private Partnership driven project scheduled for December.

Mr. James Amoo-Gottfried, Sunyani Municipal Roads Engineer, at a press briefing said the city has a good road network, centrally located to merit a project of this sort to offset the indiscriminate and unauthorised parking that is increasingly becoming a bane of traffic control, adding that Sunyani has come of age to benefit from regularised car parking as in other cities like Accra and Kumasi.

“The Authorities envisage rolling-out a traffic management scheme that promotes free movement of people and goods, and enhances an outdoor environment that is safe and convenient to facilitate the prime business of the area in an orderly manner to the benefit of all,” he said.

All walkways commandeered by hawkers and other commercial actors, according to the Roads Engineer, will be decongested; streets and buildings will be clearly identified with names and visible signs; and as well as streets-lights will be installed at vantage points to promote vibrant night activities.

Many have welcomed the proposed project as a timely intervention against the backdrop that mounting canopies, metal containers and other makeshift structures at unapproved areas, including pavements, by traders is increasingly assuming alarming proportions in Sunyani.

Mr. Amoo-Gottfried further continued that all defaced road markings will be recoated, as well as re-engineering the movement of vehicles at certain points in Sunyani where necessary to ensure well-designed movement corridors to fortify its status as the sort of place that visitors and residents identify with.