A clogged city street in Ghana.
ACCRA, GHANA -- “Every day, when I wake up, my problem is how to get to work,” says Lolita Hodonou, 24, a student and an intern who lives in New Fadama. Her neighborhood is in Accra about 30 minutes from Kwame Nkrumah Circle, the central point for public transportation in Ghana. Every morning, Hodonou spends at least two hours traveling from her home to Asylum Down, where she works.
From 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., Hodonou and dozens of her neighbors stand along the roadside waiting for a trotro — a small, public transport van that can only carry up to 20 people. After an hour wait to get on the troto, a short ride takes her to Kwame Nkrumah Circle where she joins a long queue, spending another 30 minutes before getting in a taxi that takes her to work.
At the end of each working day, Hodonou repeats the routine in reverse. ”This is not easy for me,” she confesses.
For Hodonou and thousands of other passengers in Accra, going to work or school and returning home after the day’s activities via public transportation is taking up more time and more money than ever before.
Without official bus stations in most neighborhoods, the scene at Kwame Nkrumah Circle is chaos. Passengers are overwhelmed. Busses and trotos are clogged. Many make desperate attempts to get to their destination by chasing after taxis on the bustling city streets.
Passengers and drivers in Accra agree that a scarcity of vehicles, high fares, long queues and dense traffic are all major challenges to transportation in Ghana.
For Kojo Osei, 45, a carpenter and father of five who lives at Kasoa and works near Haatso, transportation is not only uncomfortably hot, but also time consuming and expensive.
”I spend 2.5 cedi [about $1.75] daily on public transportation as I have to change cars [three times] from Kasoa to Haatso,” says Osei. In Ghana, the average daily wage is 3.1 cedi, about $2.25. Many people spend the majority of their wages just to get to and from work.
New Troto Station, Source of Hope
A new trotro station in the Achimota neighborhood recently opened in hopes of reducing the time and cost involved in the daily scramble for vehicles.
But for passengers commuting from Achimota to Kasoa, Tema, Dome and Taifa, queues remain very long. Some passengers reported waiting until 10 p.m. before getting in a vehicle to return home after work.
“I have been in this queue for over one hour,” says Mary Boakye, a 33-year-old trader who lives at Ashongman Estates, while in line at the new Achimota Station. With frustration and fatigue written on her face she says, “It is always like this here.”
“Sometimes four of us go to the roadside and hire a taxi and each of us pay 2 cedi [about $1.50] so we get to Ashongman Estate, but this is very expensive,” she says.
High Fares due to Lack of Organization, Fraud
Troto drivers often hire ‘troto-mates’ to help them collect fares. Many passengers say that while the troto-mates are necessary to help the process move more quickly, many mate overcharge customers. However, after waiting in line for several hours, most riders say they choose to ignore the fraud.
“There is constant increase in lorry fares and the mates sometimes cheat us by charging the fares they are not suppose to charge,” says Priscilla Fosu, 19, a student living near Pig Farm Road, a major roadway in Accra.
Passenger reports indicate that on a journey to and from Accra, they spend as much as 2.5 cedi, about $1.75, as opposed to the 1.4 cedi, or $1, that is the stated troto fare. Poorly designed routes often force passengers to change cars as many as three times on a single trip, increasing the cost and the possibility of fraud.
The daily struggle to get to and from work in Accra has caused an outpouring of support for a new road project aimed at decreasing traffic and increasing public transportation options. However no formal proposals are being discussed by the government at this time.