RETURNING minister, Babatunde Fashola, joined other stakeholders recently to canvass the development of an advanced inter-modal transport system for the emerging Lagos megacity. As a priority, Fashola wants the state government to accelerate the construction and completion of the first phase (Blue Line) of the ongoing light rail project to decongest traffic and serve as a template for the transformation of the city’s public transport structure. As the country’s commercial and financial backbone, the state government should move faster to provide a modern system to cope with today’s urbanisation challenges. Unless cars, the preferred choice of transport, start making way for mass transit or at least better public transport, Lagos gridlock will never be overcome.
Fashola, governor of the state between 2007 and 2015, was pained as he spoke on the stalled Lagos light rail system, the first phase of which should have been completed in 2011, but later shifted to 2016. It may no longer materialise until 2022. Urging the current administration of Babajide Sanwo-Olu to quickly complete the Blue Line, to be followed by others in the seven-line project, he spoke also of the need to decongest the city’s chaotic traffic, maintain its highways and expand the Bus Rapid Transit system.
The choice of the theme, “Lagos Beyond Roads: The Inter-modal Transport Option,” demonstrates that the state government is conscious of the challenges of transport in Lagos. One problem is the self-defeating culture of poor, or non-implementation of policies, lack of consistency, failure to plan ahead and the mismatch between infrastructure plans and revenue mobilisation. Fashola recalled that his administration had ordered coaches for the Blue Line that were now idle.
Lagos needs to upgrade quickly to an expansive and efficient inter-modal transport system or collapse into a terrible mega-slum. The primary responsibility falls on the state government, but dollops of federal funding aid will be required too.
With over 21 million inhabitants and rising, Lagos is reckoned as the seventh fastest-growing city in the world by Land-Cover Land-Use Change Programme of NASA, accounting in 2017 for 80 per cent of Nigeria’s imports and 70 per cent of exports through the Lagos-Apapa ports. It hosts 65 per cent of all the businesses, over 2,000 manufacturing companies, 200 financial institutions, largest number of small and medium enterprises in West Africa, and is the centre of Nollywood, the world’s third biggest film industry. Its 2017 GDP of $136 billion was one-third of Nigeria’s GDP, larger than Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya and is Africa’s fifth largest economy.
Lagos is also unique in that 14 of its 20 Local Government Areas are within the Greater Lagos urban conurbation such that state and “city” are used interchangeably and recognised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs as 14th among the world’s 47 megacities-cities. Along with disease control, education, migration and employment, a major issue in a rapidly growing metropolis is always transport.
Like other big cities, Lagos has to upgrade its mass transit systems, bring its dream of an efficient inter-modal transport system in line with its megacity aspiration. Urban mass transit – movement of people in urban areas using group travel techniques such as buses, trains, metro, trams, trolley cars and monorail – is today inter-connected, with water transport and even helicopter shuttles thrown in. Through its World Bank-supported LAMATA agency, Lagos has a programme that is however moving too slowly to cope with the swelling population pressure. Its roads are overburdened. Of the 11.7 million vehicles registered in Nigeria, over five million are in Lagos with over 500,000 commercial vehicles; its 227 vehicle per kilometre density trumps the national average of 11 vehicles per kilometre.
Efficient mass transit systems allow many people to be carried in the same vehicle or collection of attached vehicles, facilitating lower costs and boosting economic activities. According to the Geography of Transport Systems, a report funded by Industry Canada, because of its use of intensive infrastructure, the transport sector is an important tool for development and efficient systems result in positive multiplier effects such as accessibility to markets, employment and investments. Inefficient transport systems add to business costs, discourage investments and result in lower quality of life.
What needs to be done immediately? Sanwo-Olu should quickly complete the Blue Line and the other six phases. Lagos suffered from the cancellation in 1985 by a military junta, led by Muhammadu Buhari, of a $71 million Lagos Metro line rail project. As a civilian President today, Buhari has a chance to redeem his past misstep by deploying federal might in the Lagos rail project. It is suffering once more from interminable delays in implementing the new transport networks in rail, water transit and BRT corridors. Johannesburg is served by rail, BRT and a large public bus service.
Brazil’s largest city and financial hub, Sao Paulo, has over 16,000 buses, 290 trolley buses, 13 rail lines ferrying 7.8 million people daily and six rapid transit light lines. The Italian city of Venice, a conurbation of 118 small islands, has developed an integrated transport system with water buses the major mode: its leading Vaporetto service (public water transit) boats move millions of passengers, has 120 floating stations and 30 lines. Amsterdam integrates bicycle, trams and boats on its 150 canals, buses and metro rail for its efficient transport system where 38 per cent of all intra-city journeys are made with bicycles.
New York City’s 8.55 million people are served by a “network of complex infrastructural systems,” featuring one of the world’s largest subway (underground trains) systems, its public bus fleet is the world’s largest, has 12,000 yellow-painted taxis, and its ferries constitute one of the world’s largest; 67.2 per cent of New Yorkers commuted to work by public transport in 2006, according to the US Census Bureau.
Though having the smallest land mass among Nigeria’s 36 states, Lagos is surrounded by water and should step up its efforts to maximise all transport modes and actualise the dream of a vibrant, clean megapolis. In all of this, law enforcement should be strengthened to curb erratic and undisciplined driver behaviour.
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