Moses Akaigwe
The Lagos State House of Assembly has endorsed Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s vision to have two rail lines operational by 2022.
Chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Transportation, Hon. Temitope Adewale, stated the position of the assembly during the committee’s visit to the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) last week.
Adewale, who said the lawmakers were in LAMATA as part of their oversight functions, described the transport planning authority as a focused organisation and pledged that the committee and the house of assembly would do all within its power to continue to support it to deliver on its mandate.
He said the committee was aware of the commitment of LAMATA to providing sustainable infrastructure that would pave way for a world class multimodal integrated transport system.
“There is the growing concern of daily needs of Lagosians who must move from point A to point B. From our interactions with them, we are assured that LAMATA is here to give us the solution to our mobility challenges. And the solution is very simple. No matter how many roads you build without thinking of how to move the people en-masse from one point to the other, all the efforts would come to naught,” the legislator remarked.
The committee chairman commended the LAMATA staff, describing them as a “team ready to move the transport sector in Lagos state forward.”
The state is currently constructing the infrastructure for the Blue Line, which will run from Marina, Lagos to Okokomaiko, while the construction of the Red Line is to begin soon.
The Red Line will share tracks with the Lagos-Ibadan Rail Modernisation project of the Federal Government, and are expected to move more than one million passengers daily.
The first phase of the Blue rail line – Mile 2 to Marina – has achieved about 80 percent completion rate while the remaining works involve construction of the Marina rail station, completion of piers with the lagoon and retaining walls.
Briefing the committee, Managing Director of LAMATA, Engr. Abimbola Akinajo informed that the state government has a Strategic Transport Master Plan which details six rail lines and one monorail, 14 BRT routes, three cable car projects and over 20 water routes for implementation.
Akinajo informed that the state government under the bus reform programme would inject over 2000 buses and encourage the development of bus of a bus assembly plant to cater to the needs of the state’s bus requirements and those of neighboring West African states.
The LAMATA boss also disclosed that the agency would soon begin the implementation of eight quality bus corridors, two interchanges at Marina and Mile 2, complete the construction of bus terminals at Yaba, Iyana Ipaja, Ajah, AbuleEgba and Ojota, as well expand the first