Earlier this year, we wrote a feature about the Government’s intended plans to build a Skytrain in the city of Accra for public transportation and whether the project would take off.
Today, the government has formally announced that the project would not be going forward and has been shelved indefinitely.
Minister of Railway Development, John Peter Amewu made the announcement in a road interview that the project would not be going forward because of funding issues.
“It is not possible to be done now. I don’t see any sky train being done in the next 3-4 years. There is not going to be any Sky train in the country. It is not possible”, he said.
“Rail construction takes a lot of time and it is also capital intensive. A kilometre of a railway line is about four to five times the cost of building a concrete infrastructure in terms of building an asphaltic road.”
The Skytrain project was to build a fully automated and highly efficient, and public mass transit system that would use air propulsion technology to drive lightweight, high passenger volume vehicles. The estimated cost of the project was valued at $2.6 billion.
The proposed network would have five routes, four of which are radial routes that originate at a new terminal at the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, and another route that loops around the city.
The government says they currently have no plans to continue the project.
