TWIN-CITY TRAFFIC LIGHTS DYSFUCTIONAL (PAGE 29)

For more than three years, traffic lights in the twin-city have been defective. This has led to anger, threats and insults from residents and caused avoidable accidents. There is a traffic light at Effiekuma Number 9 from where one enters Takoradi and at a popular place called Pipe-Ano but none of them is functioning. At Effiekuma Number 9, the lights have been off completely for many months.
The traffic lights at such intersections at the Takoradi-Polytechnic, Market Circle, UBA, Kwesimintsin Police, taxi rank, Apremdo, the National Investment Bank (NIB) on the Kofi Annan Road, the Sekondi Police Station, State Transport Company (STC), Collins Avenue among others are not working.
This makes the movement of vehicles very dangerous, especially for those coming from the opposite direction.
The situation is not different when one proceeds further through the Nkrumah roundabout towards STC Yard, Beach Road, T-Poly, the Sekondi Police Station and around the market circle.
Some of the lights hang on the poles at some of the intersection as the holders have fallen off. Some of the poles have also been knocked down by vehicles.
The story is the same at market circle and at the moment the situation is very chaotic as part of the street is currently been used as bus terminals for commercial drivers whose stations are under construction.
The Daily Graphic has on many occasions published stories about the traffic lights that were not functioning. The situation at the moment has worsened as many of the poles have been knocked down.
To keep the traffic lights functioning there is the need to invest in them.
When contacted officials of the metropolitan office of the Department of Urban Roads told the Daily Graphic that the maintenance of the light had been outsourced to a private company called Signals and Control. Information from the company indicated that they had not been paid any amount and the cost of maintaining the streetlights was high.
Interestingly, directing traffic at these intersection has become a daily activity of the limited number of police personnel at the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Ghana Police Service in the metropolis.
The police can direct traffic when the lights are out for a few hours or a few days but this has become a daily affair in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis.
During rush hours, some commercial vehicles especially taxis park and load anywhere, and the few policemen have to abandon their patrol duties to direct traffic at intersections.
Some of the lights, the Daily Graphic learnt, had been off for more than four years and when repaired they worked just for a day.
Some members of the general public and motorists wondered why nobody was being surcharged and fired all these years. They suggested that students of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and other technical institutions be challenged to find solutions to the problems.
Many of the residents expressed the view that it did not make economic sense to invest huge sums of money to provide such a facility and leave it unattended to.
A taxi driver noted that when a traffic light pole was knocked down, it was just carried to the side of the road for scrap dealers to carry away under the cover of darkness.