AS the commercial hub of Nigeria, Lagos accounts for over 60 per cent of industrial and commercial activities in the country. This partly explains the metropolis’ peculiar traffic situation. Logically, intense commercial, industrial and economic activities implies more people moving from one part of the City-State to the other. In view of this, Lagos roads play host to millions of vehicles on a daily basis. According to record, in 2017, Lagos recorded an average of 227 vehicles per kilometre on a daily basis. The vehicles that ply these roads range from cars, articulated trucks, to public busses among others.
Naturally, the reality of lots of vehicular movements on the roads lead complicate traffic gridlock in the city. While traffic congestion can reflect a city’s growing economic vitality, the potential negative effects, including low work productivity, commuter stress, hours- long delays, pressure on road infrastructure, among others, have placed serious strain on the free flow of traffic in the metropolis.
It is in realisation of the strategic role of transportation as a key driver of economic development that the Sanwo-Olu administration made Traffic Management and Transportation a foremost part of its T.H.E.M.E.S (acronyms for Traffic Management and Transportation, Health and Environment, Education and Technology, Making Lagos a 21ST Economy, Entertainment and Tourism and Governance and Security) Developmental Agenda. Consequently, the administration has evolved and implemented diverse strategies to ease human and vehicular movements in the State. These include construction, rehabilitation and expansion of roads, recommencement of the Lagos Light Rail project, commencement of cashless policy at the Lekki-Ikoyi link Bridge Toll plaza, junctions’ improvement programme at major roundabouts in the city, enforcement of the Lagos Road Traffic Law 2012, recruitment of fresh LASTMA officers for enhanced traffic management and renewed efforts at improving water transportation, to mention but a few.
It is in continuation of the plans to improve road transportation in the State that the Sanwo-Olu administration recently completed and commissioned the Oshodi-Abule-Egba Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor and also unveiled 560 high and medium capacity buses that will be plying the route in the pilot phase of the scheme. The long term objective is to reduce traffic congestions along the axis. The completion and operation of the corridor was formerly slated to take-off for May 29, 2020, but was postponed to Tuesday, August 11, 2020, due to challenges occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Oshodi-Abule-Egba BRT Corridor is median running BRT infrastructure with passing lanes at the bus station locations. The BRT lanes have a width of 3.5m minimum on each direction, all rigid pavement, and provision of reinforced concrete pavement and lay byes at Bus Station locations. It has 14 new BRT stations, while the entire BRT lanes are segregated with barriers.
The project covers a full rehabilitation of the 4-lane carriageway along the entire corridor, 11 new pedestrian bridges and three other rehabilitated and modified ones, street lighting along the corridor and within bus stations, traffic signalization, traffic system measures such as traffic signs and road markings, longitudinal and transverse service ducts and retaining walls among others. This new BRT corridor is envisioned to bring about improved mobility with the capacity to move over 350,000 passengers per day, reduce travel time by at least 35 per cent enhance social and economic development along the corridor and enhance the projection of Lagos as a world-class society among others. Certainly, the project is very significant because of its immense benefits to commuters along the ever busy Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway. It is a major link for millions of Lagosians who commute in and out of Alimosho, Egbeda, Ijaiye, Iyana-Ipaja, and other places to other parts of Lagos or to neighbouring Ogun state and the Republic of Benin.
A major objective of the project is to bring great relief to commuters who will use the facility daily. Also, it is meant to reduce travel time, which is estimated at an average of two hours during peak periods, to an average of 30 minutes. This will, no doubt, translate into improved health for the people, a safer environment and enhanced socio-economic activities. In order to deliver excellent service, three operators have been signed on to ply the new corridor. They have since commenced operations with brand new state-of-the-art buses. Also, electronic fare collection system was introduced to avoid stresses associated with the old order. The e-ticketing mechanism has modern functionalities which simplify the process of bus booking and ticket purchase. It introduces simple solutions that guarantee seamless cash and wireless payment for passengers at designated booths. The Oshodi-Abule Egba BRT Corridor is in line with the aspiration of the Sanwo-Olu administration to solve the perennial traffic gridlock in the State through an effective and efficient transport system, which is also key to the building of a 21st century economy which is central to the attainment of a ‘Greater Lagos’. It is important to stress that more private investors with interest in the sector are, however, still required to partner with the government in order to fully enhance the prospect of public transportation in the state. It is in doing this that Lagos can truly become a 21st century economy.
On its part, the state government is ever willing to embrace more creative and strategic enterprises geared towards improving the unlimited potentials of public transportation. On the whole, given the complex and vital nature of public transportation in the State, the Sanwo-Olu administration has done well by investing in and developing strategies that would enhance ease of human and vehicular movements in the State.
By the time the Lagos light rail project becomes effective and expanded, coupled with renewed efforts to improve water transportation in addition to numerous on-going road projects across the State, a more effective and reliable intermodal public transportation system would certainly emerge.
Lagosians are, however, enjoined to cooperate with the government to protect all public infrastructure in the Stare and by obeying all traffic laws. The recent action, during the EndSars protest, whereby hoodlums vandalised public infrastructure in the State is, to say the least, inimical to development and should not be recurrent.
- Ogunrinde is of Features Unit, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Lagos State.
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