Four-tier Pokuase Interchange to be ready June ending - Urban Roads

The four-tier Awoshie-Pokuase Interchange and Local Roads Project located in the Ga North Municipality of the Greater Accra Region is 96 per cent done and scheduled for full completion by June this year.

The project,which is estimated to cost $70 million, began on July 3,2018,after the sod had been cut by the then Senior Minister,Mr Yaw OsafoMaafo,on behalf of the
President,Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic last Thursday, the Director of the Department of Urban Roads (DUR),Mr Abass Awolu,said the contractor, Zhogmei Engineering Group Ltd of China,had given the assurance that barring any unforeseen development, the project would be completed by the end of June.

“Works will be completed by the close of the second quarter of this year and handed over to the government,” he said.

Project variations

The project was originally scheduled to be completed in October last year and later changed to March this year.

That was as a result of the inclusion of a fourth tier which was not part of the initial plan.

On a two-day tour of Accra, beginning from November 25, last year, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo inaugurated phase one of the interchange and opened the third tier of the project to traffic from Awoshie to Accra and from Kumasi to Awoshie.

Easing congestion

The Awoshie-Pokuase Interchange is expected to remove the traffic bottleneck at the Pokuase Junction by easing the streams of traffic that conflict on the Awoshie-Pokuase and Accra-Kumasi roads.

The different tiers

The Accra-Kumasi Highway,which has four lanes, two each on the main carriageway,forms the first tier.

Traffic movement from Nsawam towards Kwabenya and Awoshie and from Accra towards Awoshie and Kwabenya form the second tier.

The third tier controls traffic movement from Kwabenya to Accra and Nsawam and from Awoshie to Nsawam and Accra.

The fourth-tier is designed to move vehicular traffic from Awoshie to Kwabenya, and vice versa.

The Awoshie-Pokuase Interchange is being executed under the Accra Urban Transport Project and is supervised by the DUR.

According to Mr Awolu, there were 10 lanes on the first tier, which is the main carriageway,with five lanes on each side.

There are also bus rapid transit lanes and service lanes on this tier.

Additional works

Aside from the main interchange,there are also a number of access roads that have been incorporated into the project to provide links to adjoining communities,
including Pokuase, Ayawaso and John Teye.

The consultant to the project,Mr Kwabena Bempong of Associate Consultants Limited,said major storm drains had been constructed as part of measures to control
flooding in and around the project area.

According to him, work on the Sunkwa storm drain, which is connected to the Nsaki River which drains into the Densu River,had been completed.

Similarly, major drains had been provided at Pokuase, Katapor, GHS Housing and Ayawaso to curtail flooding in the communities as well, he added.

Mr Bempong said a little over 10 kilometres of town roads at Pokuase, Ayawaso and John Teye had been constructed as part of the interchange project.

Furthermore, two footbridges, with ramps for the physically challenged, were under construction at the ACP and the Pokuase junctions, he said.

Meanwhile, road signages and other traffic management and safety features, such as crash barriers, hand rails, Zebra crossings, lay-bys and street lighting have also been factored into the project.

A tunnel has also been constructed for communities in the area of the project that are not reachable by the Ghana Water Company Ltd but rely on privately owned tankers for water.

As of last Monday, the contractor said, concrete was being applied to the last deck of the fourth tier, which will carry traffic from Awoshie to Pokuase.

Funding

The project is being funded jointly by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Government of Ghana.