Bush Road carnage must cease

DEVELOPMENT is not only about physical changes, but about the total contribution of every necessary sector culminating in the total wellbeing of a nation or entity.

THE nation Ghana since time immemorial has been crying for infrastructural development, particularly in the road sector: To this end, a 14-km highway was constructed from Tetteh- Quarshie through to Mallam Junction with 547 million dollars funding from the US Millennium Challenge Corporation.

THE road was upgraded from the former single carriageway bitumen surface road to an asphaltic surface three-lane dual carriageway to reduce the traffic situation on that part of the road and improve travel time from the western part of the country to the Tema Port.

HOWEVER, barely a week after the commissioning of the newly-constructed Tetteh-Quarshie Mallam dual carriage three-lane highway, Today gathers that several lives have been lost on this road leaving several sections of the road in tatters.

ACCORDING to some traders along the highway, no day passes without someone being knocked down by a vehicle or a car getting involved in an accident.

THIS is worrying: This is definitely not what the nation bargained for when Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom initialed for Ghana to be ushered into the Compact in August 2006.

FOR us on Today, this cannot be development, when one aspect of ‘development,’ that is road sector grows to the detriment of the other, that is, human ‘development.’

OBVIOUS reason for this canker is attributable to over-speeding and reckless driving on the road by over excited drivers, who see the completion of the road as pay-back time in making up for the man-hours lost on the former road.

THIS, interestingly, comes against the backdrop of President Mills’ warning against over-speeding and reckless driving on the day of commissioning of the N1 Highway.

AGAIN, the construction of foot bridges at inappropriate places, forcing pedestrians to endanger their lives by crossing the road smacks of lack of proper research before the construction of this road.

WE on Today therefore call for an immediate nipping of this carnage in the bud.

FOR starters, nothing stops the Ghana highway authority from reconstructing the foot bridges to make the road safe and user-friendly since they have been handed over the road.

WE further call for speed limits to be placed on the roads to minimize over-speeding on the road.

THE highway authority would do pedestrians a great favour if wire railings are erected in the middle of the road to prevent pedestrians from crossing the road.

TODAY humbly calls on drivers who ply that road to exercise caution while driving on that stretch to help preserve lives.

THOUGH this road is termed the ‘most beautiful’ to travel on in the city, let us not do so at the peril of our lives.