A new pedestrian foot bridge has today, Sunday 16 April 2023 been installed at Lumley roundabout in Freetown.
The bridge connects Freetown Road Lumley (Grass Field/ Freetown Road Intersection). It is part of the construction of four pedestrian footbridges at selected locations within Freetown municipality. The others are at; Wilberforce Bottom Mango – “Myong Officers Mess”, Jui Intersection, and Shell New Road Intersection.
The construction of pedestrian overpasses (footbridges) is being financed under the Sierra Leone Integrated Resilient Urban Mobility Project (SLIRUMP), to solve road-related issues by putting traffic casing and safety measures in place that will decongest these intersections and at the same time minimize the annual life lost as a result of the perpetual conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians at these intersections.
In 2021, the Government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Transport and Aviation (MoTA) received a grant facility from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)/International Development Association (IDA)/World Bank to be used for the implementation of the project.
The project, therefore, aims to improve access to quality public transport, address climate change resilience and improve road safety in selected areas and enhance institutional capacity to plan and manage urban transport in the city of Freetown.
Under the SLIRUMP, strategic intersections were identified across the Freetown municipality in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA). These intersections as defined in the National Road Master Plan of SLRA as bottlenecks to the free flow of traffic, and at the same time act as accident-prone zone locations due to persistent vehicles-pedestrian conflict.
The contractor for the Lumley Pedestrian Bridge is Sierra Leone Construction Company (SECON Ltd.). SECON is an eco-friendly construction company founded in 2015, yet they quickly established themselves as a leader in Sierra Leone helping to transform the infrastructural look of the country.