Transportation and Roads

Transportation and Roads

The road system in Ghana is something to behold.  When we left the airport, the roads were modern by any standard.  I can’t recall seeing any stop lights, but they may have been there.  I do remember round-abouts and lots of traffic (it was a Wednesday night around 9 p.m. so I can’t figure the reason for the traffic).  There were multi-lane roads that were well paved, but the further that we got from the city, the less the traffic, and the greater the change in the roads.  While there is a strong police presence alongside the roads in Ghana (our road to Accra has a permanent police check station), you don’t see many patrol cars travelling in the traffic (SUVs), and I’ve been told that there’s no formal ticket system (written ticket, court date, etc.).  I’ve seen no method for the police to determine the speed of a another car, so in order to keep cars from going too fast in more residential areas, the Ghanaians rely on the use of SPEED BUMPS (there are couple of speed limit signs, but no one obeys them that I can tell).  These things are just about everywhere; they range from three small strips of asphalt across the road separated by about 5 feet, to the raised bump that’s about 5 feet in width.  The real problem with the speed bumps is that the asphalt after the bump deteriorates because of the added force of the tires on them, and potholes and ruts result.  This results in cars weaving left and right at the speed bumps to avoid the potholes – what fun!

Beyond the speed bump method for making cars slowdown in built up areas, there’s the problem of the unpaved roads.  When we first arrived, I could only see the one main road that took us to/from Accra.  I began to wonder if there were any other paved roads.  But as we went to the other school campus (Adenta) closer in Accra, and as we entered more densely populated areas, a few other paved roads showed up as lateral roads.  So what about the unpaved roads?  They are ubiquitous, and with rare exception, you wouldn’t call them a road, but more of a path.  Not only are they narrow, but we’ve been in the wet season, so they are carved in various ways from the water that has flowed in them (It’s been a few days since we’ve had any rain, but there are still some nice sized mud holes along them).  I never noticed these unpaved back roads, until we went to church (the church building is located along an offshoot “path” that connects to an unpaved road (to get to church you have to travel a short distance along this offshoot path which has a small rivulet running through it (it’s dry now) that makes for an SUV-only road)), and then went to the other campus.

We have two methods for getting to the Adenta campus – ride in with my son-in-law the whole way when he goes to the campus, or pick up the school bus part way there (Emmanuel drives us to the pick up point at Oyibie and then it’s on the bus for the rest of the way).  The school bus however, is most likely not the image you’re considering.  The bus can hold about 35 individuals (7 rows of 5 chairs), but only through the use of jump seats.  Each row has two chairs on each side, and a jump seat in the middle aisle that gets put down once all the seats are filled up behind the jump seat.  The bus ride wouldn’t be so bad if we stayed to the main paved roads, but………..when we’re going to the school in the morning, the traffic backs up, so the driver takes the back roads to get to the school (what fun – there are times when I wonder if the bus will tip over due to the ruts), and in the afternoon upon returning to Oyibie, we drop off a number of students along the way which requires going along the back roads to get to their houses.  The ride into the school is about 20 minutes to Oyibie with Emmanuel, and then about 40 minutes from there to the school in the bus.  But the ride home is about 1 hour, 40 minutes from the school to Oyibie in the bus, and then 20 minutes home.  Of course, in the afternoon, it’s much warmer (okay, hot), with lots of bodies in the bus, and we don’t go very fast along the back roads (no, there’s no air conditioning).  Ah, the joys of riding a bus again (it’s been a few years).

So far I’ve seen no accidents, and only one wrecked car beside the road, though not for any amount of safe driving – passing with oncoming traffic is quite common since the roads contain large trucks, cars, tro-tros (private “buses” – some type of Nissan mini-van that crams in 10-15 people in a space for about 8 people), taxis (small Toyota type vehicles that only hold 3-4 people), all going at varying speeds – the taxis “patrol” the highway for customers so they go slowly unless they’re transporting people, the tro-tros are constantly pulling over picking people up or dropping them off, and the trucks go a wide range of speeds.  It’s a fluid situation!  And then to add to all this mix, the pedestrians walk alongside the road, and don’t forget the street vendors that line the road (fortunately there are no vendors that hawk IN the road – that’s only in the busy city intersections).  Very few roads have any sidewalk system, so the pedestrians just do their best, and we all get along!

Oh, and don’t forget the ubiquitous horn – it reminds me of Italy.  Horns are used constantly, but usually to warn some car/truck pulling out that you are there.  At least it’s not as bad as in Italy where the shortest time interval ever measured occurred at a stoplight that turned from red to green – the time from the light turning and the driver behind you honking their horn (okay, it’s a joke).

Michael