Bus stops or rest stops?
There is a new change in town.
A drive around during the quietness of the Christmas holidays gave me something to rejoice about, despite the filth left over by the street sellers who captured pavements and streets to spread their wares.
Relatively newly built bus shelters all around seem to be changing the aesthetics of some of the city’s roads and streets and defining the busy cosmopolitan nature of the capital, Accra. That is a plus.
It is a great idea and one wishes public toilets would be the next strategic line of support, if not for benevolent institutions, then definitely for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA).
Nonetheless, whatever the case, kudos to those benevolent organisations, Churches and philanthropists who have found it needful to provide such shelters to meet the needs of a sector of the population, commuters.
Modern bus stops
Apart from the beauty they provide to our city, erecting modern bus stops confirms the need to continuously look for the interest of the various sectors of our population, and device means to satisfy them, commuters being one of them.
In the scorching sun, it can be daunting waiting anywhere by the roadside for a commuter bus(Tro-tro) or a taxi, after church, work or school.
Plus, the idea of designated bus stops gives drivers some sense as to the safe and convenient pick up points for waiting passengers.
There will certainly be a degree of orderliness and convenience in their operations.
Once-upon-a-time, Zonta Club of Accra showed some love for commuters in some parts of Accra after their research showed the dire need of some market women and the public in general, for bus shelters to solve the problem of long standing as they waited for Tro-tros to get to some destinations.
Unfortunately, the shelters did not last.
They either got inhabited by criminals or some unscrupulous individuals knocked them down and carried away the metal components to sell as scraps.
Today, a few visible beautiful solid bus shelters have sprung up along some busy streets or roads in Accra.
One would like to believe that it is in the spirit of doing good and support the comfort of commuters, including patients and school children, that those benevolent individuals and organisations have found it proper to support the provision of bus shelters.
It is well that the providers have done some homework taken into account the strategic siting of the shelters to account for the needs of patients and school children by providing those comfortable looking bus shelters near hospitals, clinics and schools.
Future
Going into the future and with the 24 hour economy jobs coming up, definitely such structured bus stops would come in handy for workers and shoppers to wait comfortably in a safe place for transportation to and from work or the shops.
Unfortunately however, the good intentions of providing decent and safe bus shelters as waiting areas purposely for commuters might end up as nuisance.
This week, driving past two of such bus shelters in Osu and the Ring Road have confirmed one’s worst fears.
Some people have found the shelters to be places built for relaxing and in one case encountered, purely for eating.
Other people are using the shelters as a place for surfing on their phones or playing games, as they watched the world go by.
While the providers have made the shelters cozy enough for their expected users, it looks like others have hijacked them and using them as their hangout spots.
The fear is, if care is not taken, these bus shelters may soon be taken over by squatters to defeat the good intentions and purposes they were created for.
When that happens, the beautiful structures and the surroundings where they are sited may soon be turned into filth and dump sites.
This is the time one would need the AMA to take over and device means that would ensure the proper use of the new bus shelters and deter criminals and squatters from taking over.
Depending on how well they are maintained, the idea may even attract many other investors to build more bus shelters in support of the 24 hour economy and the beautification agenda for the city.
The needful should be done now and not wait till events overtake us before we cry wolf.
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