Bus traveller’s tale
I usually do the Accra-Kumasi journey by road. The fact that a person who sets off by air to Kumasi from Accra will arrive at the Kumasi Airport when his counterpart, having left the VIP or STC terminal by bus, will be lucky to reach St John’s in Accra is a very tempting reason to fly rather than drive or use the bus, especially if the pocket so permits.
That said, it can be quite refreshing watching the countryside go by, taking the towns and landmarks in as one drives or rides between the two cities.
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A leisurely stop for a fine fufu meal and a cold, frothy drink makes the ride quite worth it.
Nightmare
A couple of weeks ago, I needed to travel with a friend to Kumasi for a funeral.
To avoid the early evening traffic hot spots along the route, we turned up at the VIP terminal shortly after 2 p.m., and by 3 p.m. we were inching out of the terminal on our way to Kumasi.
Traffic was not particularly light on the route out of the city – perhaps others too had figured that it was sensible to leave town early – but we plodded along and got to the Linda d’Or rest stop at the Bunso Junction around 6 p.m.
As soon as we pulled out of Linda d’Or and unto the main road, we hit a gridlock.
As night fell, one could see a long trail of red tail lights stretching onto the distance, together with another line of headlights facing us.
Nobody seemed to know what was going on, whether there had been an accident ahead of us, whether a storm had felled a big tree across the road or what other excuse there could be.
Soon, it became apparent that we were going nowhere in a hurry.
We strained our necks, desperate for information from passengers and drivers coming from the opposite direction.
None came through, even though from time to time a police motorbike would screech by, siren blaring.
Sometimes for close to 30 minutes, our bus would not move an inch, and then when it did, it crawled slower than a snail would and then stalled.
By the time we got to Anyinam from Linda d’Or – a distance of 14.2 kilometres – it was almost 9 p.m.
Three hours! Some people simply parked at filling stations and slept in their cars, I gather.
The nightmare continued as we limped and stalled along the highway and we simply resigned ourselves to our fate.
Because I had a travelling companion, we were at least able to engage in conversation to while away the time.
I took to Facebook to vent and to warn those entertaining the thought of hitting the road that night.
Apparently, because most of VIP buses were stuck either way on the highway, there was a shortage of buses at both the Accra and Kumasi terminals and would-be passengers had to turn back home.
As we sat and stewed and seethed with frustration and impotent rage in the bus, it hit me that particularly at that time of the night, we were in a potentially dangerous situation as sitting ducks ready for any would-be robbers on motorbikes. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened.
Finally, we arrived in Kumasi just before 3 a.m., after almost 12 hours on the road. In the typically Ghanaian style, passengers found a way to make jokes out of the tortuous journey, with some wryly observing that that was enough time to fly to London and back, and probably enough to fly to China.
My legs felt like lead weights as I stepped out of the bus and with a weary but grateful smile, caught a taxi home.
I felt particularly sorry for the few elderly citizens who had been travelling on the bus.
My idling mind
Among the many things my mind idly hovered around during the ordeal – and an ordeal it certainly was – was the obvious fact that after 64 years of independence, this vital road artery had not been dualised all the way to Paga.
For what it is worth, the sheer volume of trade carried out between Accra and Kumasi and beyond, all the way into landlocked neighbouring countries, makes it an urgent imperative that it should be widened. It makes economic sense.
In an article posted on www.myjoyonline.com on March 5, 2021, Dr Williams Ackaah, a Transport Consultant and Senior Research Scientist at the CSIR – Building & Road Research Institute (BRRI) in Kumasi, stated that head-on collisions accounted for almost one-quarter (23.4%; 485 deaths) of all fatalities in the year 2019 and yet, the number of people killed through head-on collisions could have been higher if under-recording from the data source was accounted for.
He writes further, “From road safety perspective, it is illogical to allow two vehicles travelling at say 90 km/h to by-pass each other with just a thin centre line marking separating them.”
It is true that head-on collisions are not the only cause of accidents. But it is also true that aside from drastically cutting down the risk of head-on collisions, dual carriageways allow traffic to flow better.
For a distance of only 202kms, a road journey between Accra and Kumasi should never take six hours.
Beyond dual carriageways, we have to look at the concept of bypasses to free up traffic as pertains in many countries and has been done at Nsawam and Nkawkaw.
Konongo, Kasoa, Mankessim and Sekondi also need attention, failing which I believe overhead passes, as exist at the Atomic Junction in Accra or the one at Suhum, could come handy.
It is gratifying to note that in recent times, we have been taking our rail industry seriously.
We must continue to do more to bring rail on board as a viable inter-city mode of transport for both goods and passengers and to take pressure off our roads.
As our population grows, car numbers rise and there is more travel, we need to be smarter about our transport systems and stay ahead of the curve.
I have another funeral in July in Kumasi. While I know what happened two weeks ago is not normal, I live in some trepidation, just in case.
Perhaps, it is time to start force-feeding my ‘susu’ box with loose change while dreaming idly about Africa World Airlines or Passion Air.
After all, life is stressful enough as it is.
•A portion of the Accra-Kumasi highway around Nkawkaw junction
Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng
E-mail: [email protected]