Madina-Adenta gets highway canopy walkways as footbridges
Madina-Adenta gets highway canopy walkways as footbridges months after the infamous demonstrations, burning of car tyres on the road to register their displeasure to the government for not building the footbridges over the road leading to several persons been knocked down by vehicles plying the road.
The accident involving the West African Secondary School girl, demonstrations and clashes between the youth and the police after the accident led to the government taking steps to save lives by building the footbridges.
In all six bridges are under construction on the Madina -Adenta road at specific places. The locations are Firestone in front of the SG Bank, Madina-Zongo Junction close to the traffic, Redco Junction, Ritz Junction, SDA Junction and lastly the WASS school entrance area where the student was knocked down by the vehicle.
However, the government has come under serious criticism by pedestrians and the people living in the area due to the rather long winding footbridge. Crossing from one end to the other would take a walk of about 700 meters to cross the road. There are others which are easy to use and the Tetteh Qurshie footbridge comes to mind.
Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Inusah Fuseini has indicated that the NDC did not settle for the ‘great wall of China’ design for the footbridge as some people are saying.
The engineers might not have considered physically challenged users of the footbridge in the design. The design has problems yet, engineers and politicians would refuse to accept the fact.
Government officials in an attempt to rubbish the complaints of the road users have asked pedestrians to use it as a means of exercising. The footbridge has come under serious criticism and has been called a canopy walkway. A lot more are likely to defy the odds and cross the road at unapproved points at their own peril instead of using the bridge. Many will prefer to cross at the traffic like at the Zongo junction which will take up to 10 seconds to cross rather than take a 5 minute or so walk via the magnificent canopy walkways that have been paraded on the road.
We are told, the original design was not implemented when the road was almost complete because the space available for the bridge was so small. This new bridge and design have also blocked the front of many businesses in Madina for example including Banks.
Engineers in charge of the bridge may say this was the best they could do however, we could have done better and come out with a simple yet better design. A little bit of engineering ingenuity would have done the trick for Ghana.
However, it is better to walk the distance and save yourself from accidents than to take the short route across the road and die.