The Tema Motorway officially known as the N1 Highway is a highway that links

Tema Tema is a city on the Bight of Benin and Atlantic coast of Ghana. It is located east of the capital city; Accra, in the region of Greater Accra, and is the capital of the Tema Metropolitan District. As of 2013, Tema is the eleventh most p ...

Accra Accra (; or ''Gaga''; ; Ewe: Gɛ; ) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , had a population of ...

—capital of

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

. It is the only motorway in Ghana., is a major highway in Ghana that connects the capital city of Accra with the industrial city of Tema.

History

The highway was opened to traffic in November 1965 to link the harbour city of Tema to Accra. It was built under the administration of

Kwame Nkrumah Francis Kwame Nkrumah (, 21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast (British colony), Gold Coast from 1952 until 1957, when it gained ...

, the first president of Ghana. Its construction was fashioned after the

Autobahn The (; German , ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. Much of t ...

in Germany and was purposed to be the first in motorway systems that would link major towns and cities in Ghana.

Streetlights

A major problem that existed on the motorway and still exists is the lack of street lights. The motorway had no streetlights when it was completed in 1964. In June 2002, the Ghana News Agency reported that the Government of Ghana was to spend 1.95 million cedis to light up the motorway. The project was to commemorate the country's Golden Jubilee in 2007. The project had challenges that delayed its completion of the Accra–Tema Motorway. It was suspended due to cable thefts. The problem led to plain-clothed

policemen A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of t ...

patrolling the motorway. Unfortunately, not all of the mounted streetlights on the motorway are functional.

Motorway campaigns

In 2009,

Adom FM Adom FM is a privately owned radio station in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The station is owned and run by the media group company Multimedia Group Limited. The word ''adom'' means 'grace' in Twi. Adom FM organizes the annual gospel music conce ...

, an Accra-based private radio station embarked on a campaign to educate users of the motorway on dangers that faced commuters on the multi-purpose highway. The education included the rampant criminal activities on the motorway, the unsafe bridges, the potholes, stolen side-rails, malfunctioning streetlights, lack of reflectors, broken-down vehicles, and

road safety Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures, such as traffic calming, to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, Driving, motorists, passengers of vehicles, and p ...

Rehabilitation of the motorway

In August, 2009, rehabilitation work began on the road and was to cost 500,000 cedis. Part of the motorway was to be reconstructed using epoxy cement. The rehabilitation work took eight weeks and involved the removal and replacement of the concrete slabs which had developed potholes and the repair of the

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

surface on shoulders of the road.

References

{{Ghana Roads and Interchanges Roads in Ghana