“It is just annoying and time-wasting”: Understanding jaywalkers' disdain for footbridge use in urban Ghana

Unsafe road crossing behaviours result in severe but avoidable 68% of pedestrian fatalities in Ghana. Strategies to promote pedestrian crossing facility usage, especially footbridges, have chalked limited success. This study examines pedestrian crossing behaviours, profiles jaywalkers, and unravels the reasons for jaywalking using the Health Belief Model as an explanatory framework. Primary data were generated at two pedestrian crossings, including a pedestrian footbridge and an informal crossing in the Adentan Municipality of Accra, Ghana. This involved an eclectic mix of techniques, such as observations (of 674 pedestrians), questionnaire surveys (involving 395 jaywalkers), and short qualitative interviews (involving 15 jaywalkers). The rest include a transect walk using the My Tracks app and desktop reviews of media reports. Survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Thematic narrative analyses were performed on the qualitative interviews obtained directly from the field research and the media desk reviews. We analysed the transect walk data in Microsoft Excel and annotated it on Google Maps. Observations show that more pedestrians use the informal crossing (59%) than the nearby footbridge (41%). The largest category of jaywalkers are the young and educated female pedestrians who typically undertake work-related trips. Jaywalkers perceive the expected benefits of jaywalking, including proximal siting, timeliness, safety, convenience, and better informal crossing illumination, to be over the anticipated costs of safe behaviour, such as using a footbridge. The study concludes with policy strategies to address unsafe road crossing among pedestrians. These include designing people-oriented road systems that meet the psychological needs of road users and well-tailoring road safety campaigns to target female and young adult pedestrians. In addition, adequate law enforcement and the erection of physical barriers to restrain informal crossing use are highly recommended. Study limitations and potential avenues for future studies are also presented. •Pedestrians use informal crossing more than footbridge, which is considered undesirable.•Informal crossing use is high among educated and female young adults.•Jaywalking is influenced by the siting of crossing facility, convenience, timeliness and safety from crime.•The expected benefits of jaywalking exceed the expected costs of safe behaviour such as footbridge use.