The road safety enhancement works to be undertaken on the London market street at James Town, a suburb of Accra, as part of efforts to reduce road crashes and their related fatalities, have commenced. 

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is carrying out the improvements in collaboration with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) and with support from the World Resources Institute (WRI) through its Tactical Urbanism Programme, which is set to be completed in May, 2022.

The works to be done include; marking road lines and pedestrian crossing to delineate travel lanes, installation of  30km/hr speed limit sign speed ramps rumble strips as well as the narrowing wider lanes. 

The Director of Projects at Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kelly Larson, visited the site on Friday and witnessed the construction of speed ramps near the Sacred Heart technical institute and the Adedenkpo 1 & 2 school.

The intervention follows the findings of a report on road traffic deaths for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (2018 – 2020) which identified the Nii Adja Kwao Road/ London Market Street in James Town as one of the hotspots in AMA. 

The assessment conducted on the corridor revealed high pedestrian activities on the stretch due to the presence of schools, religious bodies and other land uses along the stretch with no posted speed limit signs, pedestrian crossing and road line-markings.

Vehicles on the other hand were also observed to be travelling beyond 60km/h within the zone, with vehicular volumes high during peak periods.

Speaking to the media after the familiarisation tour, Kelly Larson said the overall goal of the project was to help the city of Accra reduce road crashes, injuries and fatalities, beat speed, redesign the street, as well as increase awareness of road safety to promote the wearing of seat belt, manage speed, obey traffic regulations among others. 

Earlier, Kelly Larson met with the Board Chairman of NRSA, Germain Nkrumah and discussed various interventions being undertaken to reduce road crashes in the country. 

Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Elizabeth Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey before the beginning of the enhancement works, embarked on an inspection tour on the stretch to break the ground.