Kojo Frempong Writes: Pokuase Interchange – An Exceptional Legacy of Akufo-Addo

Fifty years from today, the Pokuase Interchange will still be serving the country efficiently and that is a tribute to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s visionary thinking. 

The reason is simple. An interchange is rated according to how well it is able to distribute traffic over its shelf life. By changing the design of the Interchange from three-tiers to four, the ‘Level of Service’ of the Interchange was remarkably altered for the sake of posterity.

The Level of Service of an Interchange is defined by how efficiently the interchange distributes traffic and by the delays experienced at the interchange. A new interchange like Pokuase will usually have high efficiency or an A-rating at the beginning.

Over time, however, ‘delays could be experienced on the interchange and this tends to reduce the Level of Service of the interchange. With time queues start appearing on the interchange.  The Level of Service of the interchange could drop from A to D or E.  

“The remarkable thing we achieved by changing the design to four tiers is that we totally eliminated the left turn conflict on the middle tier. The middle tier conflicts were controlled by traffic lights. However, with time queues will appear on the middle tier. That is the challenge of a middle-tier conflict in the design.

However, these conflicts have been totally eliminated by splitting the middle tier movement in the original design to two separate movements- second tier – for left-turn movements for vehicles from Nsawam to Kwabenya and Accra to Awoshie.

Whilst the left-turn movement from Awoshie to Nsawam and Kwabenya to Accra is now being done on the third tier. “This has significantly improved the Level of service of the interchange well into the future” says Alhaji Absas Awolu, Director of Urban Roads, the agency under the Ministry of Roads and Highways responsible for executing the showpiece project.

Provision has been made for a future Bus Rapid Transit Route on the ground level for service lanes in a bid to separate local traffic from that of the highway.   Designs for the utilization of the space under the interchange has also been completed and this will be different from how the spaces under other interchanges are being used.  

Indeed, the Pokuase interchange is a major monument to the skyline of Accra and all credit goes to the Government for it.