One of the problems Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, is grappling with is traffic congestion. Bolaji Ogundele evaluates the effects of this problem and steps being taken to curb the trend.
Some features specifically refer to some places in Nigeria. Whenever such features are mentioned, you may not need to wait to hear the particular place one has in mind. Most times, you guess and you could bet you can never be wrong. The last few days had seen Port Harcourt with more than 37 degrees centigrade in the afternoon. Of course, this is a new development and you have no choice about it. You must go about your normal duties. But, there are some residents of Port Harcourt who may not have really found it funny.
Imagine someone driving his car and gets stuck in a traffic jam, no movement at all. The problem is compounded if ones car does not have air-conditioner and the time is 2 pm when you are supposed to go and pick your children from school. Surely, you would curse whatever and whoever might be responsible for your traffic �agony�. That is a typical feeling of a road user in Port Harcourt these days. As atmospheric heat is climbing and becoming a part of the realities to live with in Port Harcourt, another character of the city, which started gaining attention in contemporary times, is block-up roads in the Garden City. The major roads in the city are scarcely free of provocative traffic jams, which have virtually defied attempts at keeping them at bay.
From one junction to another at the Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway and Ikwerre Road, the two major access routes to the city, traffic congestion has become a common phenomenon. Whoever has a business to do in any part of the city has to build the �traffic jam� factor into his time schedule. It is so bad that going on okada (commercial motorcycle) may not help you save time. Most notorious of these spots are Garrison Junction, G.R.A Junction, Bori Camp, Artillery Junction and Eleme Junction, all on the Aba-Port Harcourt Road. At Ikwerre Road, spots to watch out for are Mile 3 Park area, Agip Junction, Whimpey Junction and Rumuokoro Junction. Another spot in the city that is particularly notorious for traffic jam is the Psychiatric Hospital Junction on Rumuola Road. Almost all junctions along the main routes are problematic. But, the ones mentioned are real special areas of headache.
On Wednesdays, commuters usually dread the Eleme Junction route, especially from around 1 pm. It is believed that you must have a serious business at any point beyond Second Artillery Junction to say you want to venture towards Eleme Junction. That day is the Oil Mill Market day and the area turns to a local Dubai of some sort, where traders come from far and near to either purchase or sell their wares, causing traffic congestion. Traffic congestion at the Mile 3 Junction at lkwerre Road seems to be incurable. Here, neither days of the weeks nor hours of the day are selected for its traffic �madness�. Once it is the normal rush-hour, from about 7.30 am when workers get on the road for the day�s work, till around 10 pm when all who went to work would have returned, there is no escaping some experiences on the road that could provoke a man of power to act mindlessly.
It is believed that all road users are �mad�. If you want to be civil and observe road ethics, you may not know when you will have to react to the erratic and nauseating conduct of commercial bus drivers and okada riders. Some say the Mile 3 Junction could serve as a good psychiatric test ground because the most sane and civil man could lose his calm and over-react to certain abuses of traffic regulations by impatient road users. It would be unfair, however, if efforts so far made to save the situation are not highlighted. First, the state government has made efforts to control traffic situation through the provision of traffic lights across the city. All the troublesome spots are replete with traffic lights. But, these have not saved the situation.
Even where you see these traffic lights, you are still most likely to see the police and traffic wardens trying to restore sanity on the roads. Complementing these security agents are the specially commissioned Rivers State Road Traffic Control Agency and a private initiative, the Sam Sam Jaja Foundation. Despite these efforts, the Port Harcourt roads are still mostly jam-packed with vehicles, an evidence of a booming economy. It is said that the improvement in the state�s economy has led to the influx of people from other states. Besides, there has been a considerable exodus of people from the rural to urban areas, which has been unprecedented in recent times, thus stretching basic facilities in the state capital to their limits.
For another school of thought, the population explosion in the city, which has partially resulted in traffic congestion, occurs because there has not been an aggressive move to expand Port Harcourt to other neighboring semi-urban areas close to the city like Ahoada, Emohua, Eleme and even Bakana. Other reasons adduced for the problem in the city include impatience from some commercial drivers/okada riders and the failure of police/traffic wardens to do their work well. Mr. Obi, a businessman and public transport commuter, heaped the blame on drivers, especially commercial ones, who he said are impatient. �The problem at Mile 3, for example, is that commercial bus drivers and taxis park their vehicles anyhow. They can even stay in the middle of the road and pick or drop passengers�, Obi said
Anyway, government and public-spirited bodies are not sleeping over this traffic menace in Port Harcourt. Nigerian Tribune gathered that the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (PHCCIMA) has designed a Public/ Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to solve the problem. According to PHCCIMA president, Prince Billy Gillis-Harry, the provision and maintenance of infrastructure are usually a collaborative effort between the public and the private sector and that is what we intend to do.
Indeed, if the traffic situation does not appreciate considerably, quite soon, Port Harcourt might just become like one of those towns in China, where bicycle-riding is the in-thing.