As a transport planner, and an Accra resident with a personal interest in the city having an effective and sustainable transport network, I am of course very interested in the proposed Accra skytrain project. Photo montages of a futuristic elevated light rail system are stirring, bringing to mind the high-tech Africa of the Black Panther movie, and generating anticipatory pride in Ghanaians. However, those of you who have followed my columns know that my test for a project’s worth is not how shiny it looks when the tape is cut, but the tangible benefits it delivers to citizens over its lifespan, and whether it is value for money given there are many calls on our resources.
There is very little published information to help me assess these issues for Accra’s skytrain, which is disappointing given we are told it’s a $2.6bn concession – that’s a lot of money to be justified. For example, the Railways Ministry website has no information at all under the scheme name. And as usual what limited information is publicly available focusses on the physical infrastructure and cost. I have found nothing on the critical topic of specific benefits to be delivered and how those will be achieved (or for example what the fare levels on skytrain will be, which are crucial in determining the scheme’s impacts). Such information is needed to allow scheme realism and value for money to be assessed, to enable scheme improvements by external challenge, to build a sense of shared ownership that helps give longevity beyond the initial government sponsor; and to help ensure those making scheme decisions can be held accountable for the achievement of the benefits which are the stated purpose for their expenditure of public resources.
The scanty published figures I have seen do give pause for thought. In April 2019 the Railways Minister is quoted as saying there would be 256 km of skytrain track in a first phase of the project, costing $1.2bn. However, the concession agreement announced in November 2019 is said to cover 194km of track and to cost either £2.3bn or $2.6bn, quoted in different reports in the same month. It appears that over the 7 months before the concession was signed, the budgeted cost per kilometre of track to be delivered increased to almost three times its earlier value. Of course, as projects are worked up in detail, it is common for additional costs to be identified. And as it is a private concession, it is to be hoped most of the costs will initially fall on the private construction firm.
But in the end, there are only two sources of money to pay for public transport projects such as skytrain. The sources are fares, and government support from its tax base. (For the latter there might have been the opportunity to capture some of the increases in land and property values generated by the scheme, as is done in Hong Kong. This has not been discussed as far as I am aware, which is a pity, given high property values make this potentially a useful contributor to overall funding. However, Ghana’s often-dysfunctional land ownership system would need to be improved before such an approach could really be viable.)
It follows that increases in the cost of the scheme should be of great interest to the public as they are the ones who will ultimately bear these costs through higher fares, higher taxes or both. And with low cost tra-tras presumably continuing to compete with skytrain, the extent to which higher fares can raise more money may be limited, as they will push some potential skytrain passengers back to slower but cheaper alternatives. The concession agreement (which is not in the public domain) will specify how the concessionaire will recoup their investment and crucially who bears the risks if ridership and fares collected fall below initially projected levels. It may give assurances to the concessionaire on limits to the competition they will face from buses and tra-tras. Government should be open with us about what they are committing citizens to pay, and the case for doing so.
Most importantly, if skytrain is to be successful in making travel round Accra more efficient, as I very much hope it will, skytrain needs to be part of an effective and integrated public transport network. A moment’s reflection makes it obvious that almost no-one simply wants to travel from one station to another, however high the speed between them. People rather need to get between homes, offices, shops and so on. It is therefore the weakest link in their overall journey that largely determines overall public transport system effectiveness. However good the skytrain service, if I cannot get to its stations it will be of little or no benefit to me. Indeed, it may slow down my overall journey, even if I use skytrain: for example if it results in increased gridlock round the skytrain system’s central hub at Nkrumah Circle. It is therefore how well pedestrian, bus, and taxi networks (together with some car drop off) perform and complement skytrain that will largely determine the latter’s success or failure in terms of transport impact. It is these other travel options what will have to be available, attractive and affordable for accessing the skytrain, and to operate in a way that does not increase congestion, if skytrain is to make a substantial positive difference.
But I have yet to hear any commitments to making the fundamental and rapid changes that will be needed to these other networks: for example, the fare and quality increases for complementary bus services that might be required alongside skytrain. Perhaps this silence is intended as astute politics rather than being an oversight or showing a lack of understanding of how the overall transport system works. It may be politicians hope that once the skytrain is in place, it will become easier to garner public support for making difficult decisions to increase the road space allocated to collective means of transport and take it away from the cars often carrying just one person and so wasting a lot of road space. And to gain support for rigorous enforcement of traffic regulations (whether it be for the tra tra drivers who stop to block traffic flow behind them that might be bringing a rival bus to join them at the stop; for “big men” insulated from traffic realities by their motorbike outriders, who worsen congestion for everyone else; or for you and I when we also clog the system when it suits us).
Whilst it might be smart short-term politics to postpone mentioning difficult decisions, it reduces the chances of building the trust and wide support we need to make the sometimes difficult changes needed to get the whole transport system working better. And if skytrain is really delivered to the ambitious timescales of less than 2 years that government has quoted, there is no time to lose in ensuring complementary improvements are also completed, or at least well underway, by then.
Skytrain could be a fabulous thing for Accra, as the heart of a much-improved public transport network, and helping put Ghana in the forefront of transport developments in Africa.
Or it could be a colossal wasted opportunity that diverts attention and funding from other necessary decisions needed to truly improve our overall public transport system, and becomes an underused “white elephant”, assuming the scheme does indeed happen.
Which will it be? Of course, the correct answer to this question should not be a function of the party you support. Such commonplace lazy, party-before-country thinking is at the root of many of our problems. Rather, it depends on getting to grips with the detail of the scheme, its cost and its delivery to make sure these are right; and to our leadership and relevant stakeholders clarifying and committing to the complementary changes needed for the scheme’s success.
A very thorough and insightful piece. I hope that decision makers all read and consider it. I think that London Transport lost a gem when you left.