Samuel Dodoo
Accra, Sept. 18, GNA – The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), has commissioned road safety enhancement works at James Town in Accra.
It marks a major milestone in Accra’s commitment to reducing road injuries and deaths since 2015.
It is also expected that the implementation of these interventions would ensure the safety of vulnerable road users and guarantee a sense of belongingness by the community as they access the corridor.
Mrs Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, who commissioned the project, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that road crashes remained one of the leading causes of serious injuries and deaths in Accra, hence the enhancement work at James Town.
She said in areas where pedestrians were present, vehicle speeds must be kept low and properly protected to prevent deaths and serious injuries.
Among the interventions approved with support from BIGRS and World Resources Institute (WRI), through its tactical urbanism programme promoting safety, were to raise pedestrian crossings together with rumble strips to help calm traffic.
“Road safety lines properly marked on the entire stretch to delineate the travel lanes, 30-kilometre speed-limit and warning and mandatory safety, while wider lanes have been narrowed to help reduce vehicular,” she said.
Mrs Sackey gave out the statistics of AMA Annual Road Safety Report from 2019 to 2020, indicating that deaths among vulnerable road users, especially pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcylists, accounted for 76 to 85 per cent.
She said the evidence highlighted the need to prioritise the protection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, adding that school zone signs have been posted to communicate to motorists the need to observe safety within the stretch due to the presence of pedestrians.
Other approved safety interventions were related to warnings and mandatory signs have been fixed to communicate to motorists the presence of the calming measures and pedestrian crossing locations.
The Chief Executive gave an assurance that the AMA would continue to work with the National Road Safety Authority, Bloomberg Philanthropies and all partners under the initiative to deploy proven solutions to save lives and improve environments where people live, work and play.
AMA-BIGRS has four components namely, safer streets and mobility, mass media and communication, enforcement and road safety surveillance which had been undertaken under these components since 2015.
GNA