THIS PROJECT MUST SUCCEED

MANY motorists in the country, particularly those who ply the roads in the urban centres and the national capital, Accra, are familiar with the maddening traffic jams on our roads and streets.
A recent study conducted by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) predicted a transportation crisis beyond Lagos and Beijing proportions in Ghana if the prevailing ratio of vehicles to motorable roads should continue.
The statistics showed that vehicular fleet increased from 382,261 to 624,783 from 2000 to 2005, an average growth of 6.9 per cent, a situation which can easily lead to saturation, considering the slow rate at which roads are provided.
This rather bleak picture has brought in its wake a huge cost to the state in terms of the man-hours wasted in traffic, even when one has to make a short trip to his or her destination, not to talk of the cost in terms of the fuel wasted, which has resulted in a skyrocketing oil import bill for the country.
Traffic jams also lead to excessive pollution and its resultant greenhouse effect on climatic conditions. There is also exhaustion on the part of motorists and passengers.
It is against this background that we must view the boost given the efforts by the government to address problems of urban transportation with the development of a concept design of a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system for Accra as Godsend.
The concept design of the pilot BRT forms part of a $95-million Urban Transport Project launched by the government in September 2007 with the view to reducing vehicular congestion and related environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The pilot project will begin on the Mallam-Accra Central route and it will involve the creation of exclusive bus lanes and terminals for the system. If all goes well, the exclusive use of the bus lanes is expected to reduce travel time for bus passengers along the route from about one hour to an estimated 25 minutes.
From all indications, this reduction in time will augur well for commuters to the central business district of Accra, since they could get to their workplaces on time and also get home early after the day’s work.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is happy, not only with the pilot project but also the fact that six other areas have been earmarked to come on board. These are the Kumasi metropolis, the Tema municipality, the Ejisu-Juaben municipality, the Ga East and Ga West districts.
It is quite obvious that the Accra Central-Mallam route is not the only one prone to traffic jams in Accra. Indeed, all the major roads and streets face that problem, even with the expansion of the road network. This is why we expect the pilot project to succeed, so that it can be extended to the other traffic-prone routes such as Circle-Achimota, 37-Adenta, the Spintex Road, Accra Central-Teshie-Nungua-Tema Beach Road, etc.
The DAILY GRAPHIC pleads with the implementing agencies — the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment — to ensure that a good job is done, and promptly too, to justify the huge amount being pumped into the project. That is the only way that the sponsors, including the World Bank, the French Development Agency and the Global Environment Facility, could be convinced to extend the project to the other areas.
Given the projection by analysts that the population of Accra and its surrounding towns is expected to double by the next 15 to 20 years, it is imperative that the transportation bottlenecks in the city are dealt with in a holistic way to avoid the problems associated with transportation in mega cities like Lagos and Beijing here.
We wish the BRT project a success, knowing that it will go a long way to improve the government’s urban mass transport system.