ON-STREETS ECONOMY: The Kasoa Principal Streets in Perspective

Its name literally means “the Market”, and as at the time of publishing this article, it can boast of two major market places within its district, thus; the old market and the new market. The continuous growing population of the area and the metropolitan nature its assuming has provided the very impetus for it to be affiliated with all sort of criminal activities happening from adjourning districts, a menace that created a dent on the minds of many about the area yet, its sprawling with lightning speed. Welcome to “Kasoa”, the District Capital of Awutu Senya East Municipality and the gateway into the Central Region of Ghana along the Gulf line.

Background Kasoa is known to be one of the fastest developing areas in West Africa with a population of 236.527 (according to Ghana Statistical Service, 2021 PHC report) and still growing. Despite it’s been home to two huge markets with one being (New-Market) part of the biggest markets in the Central Region. Street marketing has engulfed and is gradually swallowing portions of the Cape Coast-Kasoa highway which passes through Kasoa’s Central Business District (CBD) and along the principal street, thus; the Kasoa-Ofaakor road. These two separate phenomena are happening concurrently along the streets mentioned above and they’ve got some consequences on the socio-economic well-being of the environment. These increasing activities of street marketing on the streets poses some major hazards which are impacting negatively on both the people themselves and other vehicular road users.

Socio-economic Impact

• Excessive Vehicular Traffic: The construction of the Kasoa interchange was geared towards reducing the unbearable “famous Kasoa traffic predicament” which was able to prolong a journey originally scheduled to take 10mins to a possible 45mins or even more. The interchange had a duo-carriage flyover and two-lanes attached to its flanks with their respective strategic bus stops. These features of the interchange were designed to ensure free flow of traffic around the CBD, however, the presence of traders, market men and women with their varied wares and stocks of goods for sale setup on the streets has narrowed the original width of the road to single-lane on the ground lane. This development makes approaching vehicles at the foot of the flyover accumulate due limited lane space thereby generating protracted traffic situation. This same street marketing activities is happening along the principal streets near the New Market with an even more dreadful impact due to the single lane” in-and-out” nature of the road there. We see the already narrowed road been further narrowed with the occupation of these traders and their setup on the streets conducting heavy trading activities. What’s more surprising is the fact that there are lots of unoccupied market shelves and stalls within the main market square. With the bad nature of alternative access route,traffic congestion on the reads especially on markets-days can make a vehicular road user spend up to a 45mins to journey across a 700 meter stretch.
• Another crucial aspect we can mention will be the health and safety risks street marketing in the municipal poses. These traders and their wares (especially foodstuffs) are at the mercies of emitting fumes and dust particles from vehicles using the roads. Most of the traders doing their business on the shoulders of the roads have been known to exhibit associated respiratory conditions which is believed to have emanated from the continuous inhalation of fumes and dust particles. Also, the traders are most vulnerable to any form road carnages and related crushes resulting from vehicles losing controls and directions during driving. Events can really be fatal when things go wrong.

• The last negative impact I will highlight in this article will be the general economic meltdown across a large scale. Most people step out undertake or engage in one economic activity or a productive venture which is mostly within a time frame. There is no doubt the occupation of these roads for market activities narrows and impedes free flow of vehicles. The resulting effects of this will be people spending more productive working time in stuck traffic and the potential adverse effective on general outputs. The extra cost of burning fuel in traffic doing nothing and just being stuck at one place will be topic for another day’s discussions.

Interventions so far. There have been two major measures put in place to check the influx of market activities on the streets within kasoa. The first one has to do with the erection of iron barricades along the pavement walkways to prevent the traders from extending their market activities onto the streets. This measure hasn’t really yielded the desired results due to the fact that, portions of the iron barricades have either been removed forcefully or damaged and, in many cases, totally ignored as if it never existed.

The second measure has been the Ghana Police Divisional MTTD Command deploying personnels to patrol, monitor and in some cases cease wares of these traders to deter them from infiltrating the streets. This measure although it seems to work, it isn’t that sustainable as we see a return of the traders on the streets almost immediately when the uniformed men and women vacate their duty post.

Conclusion
In the face of the growing population of the district and the rate of urban sprawling happening, a more robust approach to solving this menace is crucial. A broader consultation is key and needed to make an informed decision in formulating social policies that would be more sustainable in addressing the issue of Streets Economy. These policies must seek to get the traders back to the market shelves and stalls to ease the human-induced nauseating traffic.

Author: Seth Sabah Serwornoo-Banini
MSC Urban Studies Student
Centre for Urban Management Studies
University of Ghana