Heavy traffic builds up in Accra after rains

Source: GNA  -  The rainstorm that hit Accra in the evening of Wednesday and lasted till Thursday morning resulted in heavy vehicular traffic in most parts of the city on Thursday morning.

Some residents blamed the situation partly on the floods in parts of Accra East, which led to diversions of most vehicles to join other roads, which on normal days would have been free of such heavy traffic.

The heavy rains also exposed the shoddy work of some road contractors, and the issue of narrow and choked drainage systems.

Some portions of Kwabenya, Dome, and its environs experienced heavy flooding, with the rains sweeping virtually all the rubbish in its path and dumping them in gutters, and choking them.

Stones, gravels and sand had been washed onto some of the roads, thereby making it very difficult for smaller vehicles to drive through fast.

This resulted in the slowing-down of traffic from Kwabenya through to the Dome roundabout to Haatso, to the Westland through to the GIMPA Road to the traffic lights towards the Fiesta Royal Hotel.

The flow of traffic to Atomic roundabout was also heavier than usual thus constraining commuters and frustrating drivers who complained about high fuel consumption.

Some commuters who depend on commercial transportation were, however, stranded at the various bus stops.

A mother who was driving her children to school at Dzorwulu said she was in a state of nervousness and anger at the snail pace of the traffic because her children would not be admitted to the school after 0800 hours.

Though there were traffic police officers at vantage points directing affairs, the situation was still bad.

An angry driver claimed that some traffic police officers were rather to blame for the poor state of affairs because they lacked the requisite expertise to ensure a smooth flow of traffic from all the routes linking the intersections.