A Brief Note On Road Network On The Widikum Menka Area Essay

4.1 Analysis of Road Network in the Widikum-Menka Area A total of 193.04km of road network exist in the study area (Table 1) and all these are untared except one (the Trans-African Highway) with a road length of 5.87km within the Widikum Municipality that cuts across from Bamenda to Mamfe (Widikum Rural Council, 2014). Table 1: The situation of road network in the Widikum-Menka Area National Regional Streets Total paved Farm to market roads Footpaths Paved Unpaved Paved Unpaved Paved Paved 1 paved unpaved 1 0 - - 0 3.53km 0 74.68km 108.97km Source: Annual Reports Widkum Rural Council, (2005) Earth roads cover 38.7% of the total road network and 56.4% are foot paths while streets are very few and cover only1.8% of the roads. The accessibility of the earth roads to four wheel vehicles is temporal as most of the earth roads are always in deplorable state during the rainy season coupled with frequent landslides that cut most parts of the roads. The poor road conditions and the absence of transport facilities no doubt affect the agricultural landmark of this montane area. This is a major deterrent to any form of development endeavor since the movement of goods and services to and from this area is impaired. This is contrary to the view of Pritchard (1982) who noted that an efficient transport system usually stimulates economic growth and an improvement of the livelihood conditions of rural communities. 4.2 Quantity of agricultural products produced The main