Lagos State governor, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, has declared Thursday, July 11, 2019, a toll-free day for vehicles plying the Lekki and Admiralty Toll Plaza in Lekki and Ikoyi areas of the state, during the morning and evening peak hours.
The governor made this declaration on Wednesday while addressing State House Correspondents after a tour of the Victoria Island-Lekki-Ajah axis over traffic gridlock and flooding issues.
Those in the entourage of the governor include his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat; Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mrs Folashade Jaji; Head of Service (HOS), Hakeem Muri-Okunola, among others.
This was just as Governor Sanwo-Olu promised that the state government was poised to do a design of the flood-prone
Abraham Adesanya end of Lekki-Epe Express Road that would open up the blocked drainage in the area and allow “comprehensive flow of water in the area into the Lagoon which will be a permanent solution.”
According to him, the two toll plazas would be left open between 6.30am- 9.30am and 4.30pm- 8.00pm, saying the purpose was to enable the authorities to do a traffic situation analysis with a view to finding solutions to the issue of traffic gridlock in the area.
“The objective is that we want to do a real simulation of traffic study, when you open the toll plaza where does the traffic get into, does it disperse and goes completely away or do we transfer it somewhere else.
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“It is only when we do this at the peak hours we would be able to understand and appreciate what would be the effect of it.
“We just want to do a study and also appreciate Lagosians that we are not unmindful of the challenge we have with the two plazas, but our government wants to bring about a different journey time and the way we want to do it is to have online real-time study of what all the issues are,” the governor said.
Sanwo-Olu opined that the study would enable the government to analyse the dimension of the next step of solutions that would be brought about.
He revealed that beginning from 1st of October, the entire software of the Admiralty Bridge would be changed to the electronic plaza, whereby users would not be paying cash again, but would just be “touch and go and it will be quicker and faster,” reducing traffic and journey time to 50 per cent.
The governor, who had earlier at the Four Point Sheraton, met with stakeholders in the axis, including the Oniru family, Access Bank, Planet Project Ltd and residents, said there would be a lot of improvements in the corridor.
According to him, “some places will be one way, we would also be doing road improvements and new roads in one or two of the places there.”
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