N1 Highway To Get Four (4) More Foot Bridges

The Millennium Development Authority (MIDA) has said it will soon build four more foot bridges on the George Walker Bush Highway with two at the Lapaz section of the N1 Highway to curb the frequent accidents on the highway. Over seventy people have been killed while attempting to cross the road or in crash caused by pedestrian movements since the road was opened in February 2012. The latest was the death of a 10 year old girl who knocked by down by a BMW saloon car while trying to cross the highway on Monday. The death of the pupil and two more on Sunday sparked a mini protest by residents in the area who say their demands for additional foot bridges has been ignored by City authorities. MIDA, the Authority which supervised the construction of the 14kilometre stretch of the N1 Highway has since come under harsh criticisms for the frequent accidents that occur on the road due to the wide distance between the human settlements along the highway and the foot bridges on the highway. The Transport and Agriculture Manager of MIDA, Dr. Bernard Koranteng Yorke in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday explained that his outfit will immediately get to work if government approves the submission for the construction of the four steel bridges. According to him, the N1 highway was supposed to have about �eight or so interchanges on this road�at Awoshie, Kwashieman, Nyamekye, Lapaz, and another one at Dzorwulu and if you look at it, there were five interchanges that we should have added to the present interchange at Dimples and Mallam but because of the funding constraint, we selected the two critical interchanges.� He further explained that the future development of the remaining five interchanges on the N1 highway informed the current positioning of the footbridges and therefore it was not an engineering oversight by MIDA as perceived by the general public. �When we opened the road, we realized that the crossing at Lapaz so heavy and therefore, there will be the need for some temporal measures so we made a submission to government with respect to putting some steel bridges that we could use temporarily so that in future, when we are about to build the permanent interchange at Lapaz, we will then remove those steel bridges,� Dr. Yorke added.