How can Lagos State tackle its traffic gridlock? It is through the strenghtening of other modes of transportation, say experts at the state’s maiden transportation summit. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE reports.
When he likened transportation in cities to blood flowing in human veins and how a person (or the city) dies when blood stops flowing, Dr George Banjo, a United Nations (UN) technocrat, drew, perhaps, the most telling analogy of how traffic congestion has become Lagos city’s headache.
Banjo, the lead speaker at the summit, noted that Lagos being the country’s commercial nerve centre is suffering from the repercussions of its economic successes and the result of unfocused land use approvals.
To him, to get out of the woods, the government must redress the imbalance in the supply and demand chain in transportation infrastructure.
Reeling off statistics, Banjo said from 7.7 million in 1995, Lagos’ population has now hit 21 million, making it the 11th megacity in the world according to the United Nation’s latest ranking.
The state risks a lock down, if something is not done about urban renewal development, Banjo added.
He said though Lagos does not come near some other advanced cities in the world with high motorised density, its concentration on road transportation, has continued to worsen traffic congestion because its infrastructure can no longer support the population.
Admitting the abandonment of the state which used to be the federal capital until the late 80s, Banjo said until the movement in 1991, the government invested in road infrastructure in Lagos, the last being the Third Mainland Bridge.
Though building new roads is attractive, he said, it would merely open other axis of traffic congestion, rather than abate it.
He advocated effective land use, with appropriate provisions made by large volume users for the traffic their activities would generate.
Banjo challenged Governor Akinwumi Ambode to lead the crusade for a massive land use reform to ensure effective utilisation of public infrastructure by all.
He urged the governor to lead the crusade for the reversal of approvals for land not used for the overriding public interests for which they were acquired, rather than allowing them to be used for private interests.
According to him, while it is too early to pick holes in the governor’s transportation policy, anything short of intermodal public transportation, aimed at encouraging more people to drop their cars for a convenient, safe, reliable and affordable means of transportation will continue to fail.
He said: “Anything short of promoting public transportation in order to encourage more marginal car users to drop their cars and patronise public transportation, with a view to relieving the roads and encouraging a cleaner environment would continue to fail or result in traffic congestion.”
Banjo harped on the need for the state to embark on an intensive lobbying of the Federal Government to ensure its involvement in the provision of workable transportation modes.
The Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Roads Safety Corps (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi, called for the strict enforcement of the state’s Traffic Law to generate more revenue for the government through ticketing of offenders.
He said he has approved unrestricted access of the state to the FRSC’s National Drivers Database, to ensure that no driver escapes sanction after being convicted of a traffic infraction.
Oyeyemi, who observed that 90 percent of transportation operations in the country are by road with Lagos accounting for over 80 percent, praised the state for the giant strides it has taken, such as a robust data base of professional drivers, a Drivers Institute and a rounded Traffic Law. He noted that what remains is the will to enforce the law.
He wondered what over 4,240 trucks, most of which are over 30 years and not road worthy, are doing on Lagos roads, adding that with strict enforcement, the roads would be sanitised and reckless drivers kept at bay.
Oyeyemi said if Mexico City could be generating $500 million from fines yearly, Lagos State could explore ticketing as a major revenue source.
This, he added, can be better cemented with the building of a strong synergy and promotion of knowledge sharing among agencies involved in traffic control to ensure that all of them work to remove bottlenecks to the free flow of traffic.
Oyeyemi called for the adoption of the Nigeria Road Safety Strategy (NRSS), which canvassed the promotion of public sector transportation, installation of IP cameras on some strategic roads and at intersections and the introduction of automated taxi services to reduce traffic on the roads.
The General Manager, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Bashir Braimoh, said the state is moving towards voluntary compliance of traffic regulation because it is more cost effective and civilised.
Braimoh said, it could be cumbersome, painful, stressful and frustrating with only 2,400 officers, managing traffic on 117 federal roads, 328 state roads and 6, 415 local government roads.
He called on motorists to obey the “sleeping LASTMA” (road signages, markings, and traffic signal lights), even when officers are not on ground for ease of movement and traffic flow.
Within the last three months, the agency, he said, had carried out “Operation Sand Storm,” where his men raided all traffic violators, to show those who were criticising the agency that it could still bite, while only recently, it commenced “Operation Open Heart,” in which the agency took safe driving advocacy and traffic regulation compliance to churches and mosques.
Braimah said since he resumed office, he had never received any calls from National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) or Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) chairman, pleading on behalf of any of their members, while tons of such solicitous calls have been coming from private vehicle owners and from “their friends in government.”
The Ministry of Transportation’s Director, Transport Policy, Strategy and Coordination, Taiwo Salam, said available data showed that as at 1951, Lagos population was 28,000 and the only bridge at the time, Carter Bridge, was built in 1961. By 1963, the population had jumped to 380,000 and by the time Eko Bridge was added in 1975, the population had hit 1.7 million. In 1995, when the Third Mainland Bridge was constructed, the population had hit 7.7 million.
He said planning was done not taking the people’s needs into consideration even in citing public infrastructure in the state.
Salam said it was a misnomer that transportation infrastructure, such as roads, bus stops, jetties, and bus shelters, were built without the passengers in mind, contrary to global best practices that place the passenger in the centre of transportation planning.
He challenged the government to change the focus by providing safe, efficient, affordable and reliable infrastructure and transportation rolling stock, adding that if these could be provided, the pressure on roads, occasioned by private vehicles would reduce.
Former Transportation Commissioner Prof. Bamidele Badejo urged the government to work at improving the functionality of existing roads, adding that most of the roads have outlived their usefulness and “can no longer respond to current vehicular pressure.”
Badejo, a transportation demographer and former dean of Social Sciences at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, however, noted that traffic congestion being one of the signs of a thriving economy cannot be completely eradicated but abated.
“Let me comfort you, Mr. Governor, that you cannot win the war against traffic congestion. In fact, it is one of the indices of a thriving economy. So, more advanced economies have not succeeded in eradicating it. You can only abate it, and that is where you must play your part in making sure that all modes of transportation work as they provide virile alternatives for the people,” Badejo said.
LASTMA’s Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Chris Olakpe, wanted the government to go on the offensive against the touts and all characters parading the motor parks and garages. He said the preponderant use of hard and narcotic drugs would reduce substantially and this would manifest in more sanity on the roads.
Former Dean of the School of Transportation Lagos State University (LASU), Dr Ba Wahala, called for the establishment of the Traffic Flow Project Agency (TFPA), an intervention agency under the governor’s office, that would be directly answerable to the governor and would be monitoring transportation needs, policies and programmes of the government.
Prof Olumide Olusanya and Dr Biodun Otunola Managing Director of Planet Projects Limited, spoke on the upgrading of junctions and road expansions said more expansion and better land use would have a multiplier effect on the capacity of the roads to cope with the pressure of modern society.
Otunola said the roads in Lagos are chaotic because they are designed and constructed for vehicular use alone, without any consideration for pedestrians. He said because the passenger is the king in urban migration or transportation planning, there must be deliberate attempts to plan to meet his needs and use.
Director of Public Transportation in LAMATA Femi Dairo, said the government and all its agencies must synergise to ensure appropriate land use. He said most of the issues and challenges the Ministry of Transportation is trying to tackle are foisted by some agencies and ministries which never took into consideration the factors that compromised the most effective use of the land approved for any major commercial or industrial use.
He also called for more investment in road infrastructure, adding that a budgetary allocation of 22.61 percent spent on transportation in a state like Lagos palls into insignificance when compared to huge spending of 59.86 percent of its yearly budget on transportation by the city of London.
Ambode charged participants to come up with practical and innovative solutions that can address current challenges and deliver immediate dividends to the people.
Describing the transportation congestion as a symptom of the state’s success, Ambode said it behoves the government to devise fresh innovations to address age-old problems besetting the state.
He said: “Lagos in many ways is a victim of its own success as many people leave other states to live in Lagos to seek better opportunities. We need to go back to the drawing board and agree on how our transportation sector can be effectively and efficiently operated to support the kind of trade and investment we want to continually attract.
He assured the experts that his government, “has the political will and is ready to take whatever tough decisions you come out with to resolve these challenges and tackling traffic is a good place to start.”
Earlier in his goodwill speech, the Transportation Commissioner, Dr Dayo Mobereola, said the summit was a direct response to traffic congestion faced by Lagosians in recent time. He said the government put the summit together to allow experts’ imputs into transportation policy initiatives of the government to get a lasting solution to the intractable congestion.
He said all the speakers should see themselves as playing a historic role of helping the state chart the way forward for free flowing traffic.
The summit was attended by members of the academia, professionals in the built environment, Ministries of Physical Planning and Urban Development as well as Ministry of Works, while other related agencies of the Ministry of Transportation which presented papers at the summit were the LAGBUS and the Lagos State Waterways Agency (LASWA).
