Fix these death traps

This year’s rains have barely begun, but many roads across the capital are already in a bad state.

A visit to a number of locations within the capital exposed the bad nature of some of the roads.

Some of the major link roads, particularly the Kaneshie-Odorkor-Weija highway and portions of the main Accra Beach Road that leads to Tema have become dangerous to motorists.

It is also getting worse on the Accra-Amasaman-Ofankor road, as well as Bortianor roads.

Nature

Most of the roads have developed huge potholes, deep enough to serve as water receptacles and pose as death traps.

Although the situation has existed for months, it has been made worse by the recent rains, making driving on those roads dangerous and tedious.

Drivers on these routes are forced to manoeuvre their way through the potholes to avoid damaging their vehicles.

That has also resulted in traffic jams, since drivers have to slow down to avoid running into the potholes.

Dansoman (Hansonic) Junction on the Odorkor-Kaneshie road

Areas

Last Sunday morning, the Daily Graphic toured some of the worst affected roads to assess things for itself and found out that the issue was alarming, particularly on the Kaneshie-Weija road. It included sections of the Mpamprom road, under the two Kaneshie Overhead bridges, First Light, the Dansoman Junction, the Darkuman Junction and the Odorkor Traffic Light area.

On the Accra Beach Road, the situation starts from the La Hospital stretch all the way to the bridge over the Kpeshie Lagoon.

There is no reprieve either on the Pokuase-Nsawam road, with roads at Odumase, Nsakina, Amamole through to Amasaman deteriorating by the day.

Danger

In the night, drivers are worse off due to the darkness on the roads resulting from faulty street lights.

At Kaneshie First Light, for instance, vehicles from the Pentecost area have to compete with those coming from the main Kaneshie Market to use the road.

Darkuman-Odorkor road

Regular users of the road who are familiar with its poor state seem to have adopted ways to avoid the potholes, quite unlike first-time users who are overwhelmed by them.

A couple of days ago, a driver burst one of his tyres after driving into the pothole under the old overhead bride as a result of poor illumination.

The roads are already busy, and the worsened situation had resulted in traffic jams on all those roads, the Daily Graphic observed.

Existence

A commercial bus driver, Kwakye Ofori, who plies between Kaneshie and Awoshie, told the Daily Graphic that the potholes on the roads had been there for months and wondered whether the authorities were aware of the situation or not, “because I just don’t understand”.

He said with the onset of the rains, the situation was likely to get worse.

A taxi driver, Mr Yaw Asante, aka ‘Agenda’, noted that if the roads were not improved now, people who were not familiar with them would end up driving into potholes, especially when there was a downpour. 

He said if the potholes could not completely be tarred, they could at least be filled with laterite to make them motorable, instead of the current state.

“Using the roads in the night is horrible because you spend hours in traffic. At Odorkor and the Darkuman Junction, the situation is worse because the potholes are huge,” he said.

A trotro driver on the La-Teshie Beach Road, Nii Adjei Adjei, described the situation as perennial and wondered if there would be a permanent solution to the problem.

Sakumono Beach road

“This is the main road that leads to an important economic hub — the Tema Harbour — yet the road is so bad. When driving on it, you have to apply all your experience, as if doing a zig-zag with your vehicle on the road. It is too stressful.

“Every year it happens, and then some temporary work is done to solve the problem. It is about time a permanent solution was found, given the importance of this road,” he stressed.

No choice

A trader living at Mallam, Helen Commey, narrated the harrowing experience of the taxi in which she was sitting running into one of the potholes at the Darkuman Junction.

“I took the taxi at Mpamprom because there were many passengers waiting for trotro. Just after the Dansoman Junction, the driver realised that there were dangerous potholes on the road to the Darkuman traffic light and started dodging them by going into the inner lane,” she said.

A driver on the Beach Road, Divine Ahiable, said unlike people going to Tema who had the Tema Motorway as an alternative route, those from Teshie, the Estates and Nungua to Accra had no alternative routes and thus had to endure the bad nature of the Beach Road.

“The alternative route could have been the Teshie Bush Road, but that is no better and so we have to endure the bad state of this main road,” he said.

Commuters along the Amasaman-Ofankor route said their already bad situation had been made worse because of construction works along the Pokuase stretch.

“Things are already bad and the construction has worsened the situation. Now that the rains are coming, many of us will park our cars and commute by public transport.

“There is no week that I do not visit the mechanic. It is even becoming a drain on my finances. In Accra, having a car is not a luxury; now it is becoming a punishment,” Nana Yaw Ampadu, a resident of Amamole, complained.