TRAFFIC has now begun to flow freely on the street around the Takoradi Central Market in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis.
This followed the clearing of hawkers off the pavement and shoulders of the road.
Shop owners, shoppers, passers-by and customers of various financial institutions located around the market who hitherto had to battle with the hawkers to get to their various destinations are now able to move freely.
The exercise was carried out by the assembly without any force or fierce confrontation which characterised such exercises in the past.
The assembly used the Information Services Department (ISD) vans to educate the hawkers on the need to move away from the pavements and the shoulders of the streets. Interestingly, the traders complied and moved away.
However, the other problem the assembly is yet to tackle is vehicular parking at various street corners. This has resulted in some form of traffic after the traders had relocated, thus making driving around the market circle rather uncomfortable.
Opposite the Market Circle Police Station, there are shops with spacious frontage marked as parking spaces. This same area is used by the Metro Mass Transit buses and other commercial vehicles for passengers to disembark.
Vehicles park at these spaces for longer hours, and if the park is full, the buses have no option than to stop in the middle of the road for passengers to alight.
As a result, the traffic situation behind these buses mounts, resulting in a stream of heavy traffic.
The hawkers selling around the market were not the only cause of the congestion, but also the haphazard parking of vehicles.
According to the assembly by-laws, people visiting the market are expected to park their vehicles at designated areas.
The other problem has to do with the activities of commercial drivers, especially taxi drivers who compete for passengers around the market. Their main objective is the profit they make. They care less about parking according to the by-laws and the safety of passengers.
Ironically, the passengers, in whose interest the bye-laws are supposed to protect, deliberately refuse to make use of available bus terminals and are themselves guilty of the offence of standing anywhere to board vehicles.
One of the biggest problems facing the metropolitan assembly is its inability to create a lorry park for all commercial vehicles. But that notwithstanding, there are various bus terminals for the mini-buses and the taxis that shuttle between Kwesimintsim, Anaji, Sekondi, Adienbra, Kweikuma, Beach Road, Takoradi Harbour and other parts of the metropolis.
The problem, however, is that most passengers find it difficult to go to these taxis and the mini-bus terminals to board vehicles to their destinations. From their offices, they stand by the road side waiting for any coming taxi or “trotro”.
Unfortunately, those are the people one expects to have known better, but they are the worse culprits.
The shoulders of the road around Nkrumah Roundabout and the Goil Filling Station have been turned into a lorry station.
From 4p.m. onwards, one has to be extremely careful, especially when one is driving at the frontage of the Zenith Bank. This is to keep one’s car away from being hit by a taxi or a trotro.
From that same location, towards All-Needs, a popular shopping centre in Takoradi, taxi drivers have turned both shoulders of the road into bus stops.
Besides, mini-buses plying Takoradi-Cape Coast road and other towns along the Accra-Takoradi highway also line up at the traffic light near this same shop.
Interestingly, because the traffic light at the intersection is not functioning, some drivers queue behind it and clamour for passengers, and other motorists who are not aware of these drivers’ machination are compelled to join the queue, thinking it is the normal traffic.
The Central Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Takoradi Central Police carried out many swoops at the place to flush out such cunning drivers, but they will return after a day or two.
To ensure sanity on the roads, the police must as well arrest passengers who stand by the roadside to board vehicles to and from their workplaces, because if the passengers don’t stand by the roadside, the trotro and the taxi drivers will also not stop for anybody.
This might seem strange, but it will help solve part of the problem.
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