Just less than three weeks as the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu already kick-started the process of tackling the high level of traffic gridlock in the state.
Lagos, being the commercial capital of Africa’s most populous nation has been a subject of ridicule over the years as its residents pass through difficult moments arriving at their destination within an expected time-frame.
To put simply, 15 minutes drive could take up to hours because residents are usually stuck in Lagos traffic. This is the usual phenomenon. Arguably, one of the reasons a few Lagosians decided to relocate to other nearby cities.
The implications of Lagos traffic on the health state of residents are colossal. On a daily basis, week-in-week-out, many Lagosians suffer from stress emanating from this ugly development. Unfortunately, the larger majority are not able to detect the long term implications of being on the road for many hours.
Ask any average worker in Lagos ’what is the biggest challenge working in Lagos,’ you are most likely to hear its traffic jam. In as much as people try to wake up early enough to avoid being caught by Lagos traffic, they are eventually caught up by it. It’s simply inescapable.
However, the good news is that the newly elected Lagos State Governor is already making strategic moves to clean up the Lagos traffic mess.
Even before Sanwo-Olu won the election he had made his intentions known concerning the ugly development. In other words, traffic management is a critical aspect of his agenda to achieving a greater Lagos.
First, Sanwo-Olu has made an official visit to LASTMA Office to dialogue on the way forward to end traffic gridlock in the state. During the visit, Sanwo-Olu increased their allowances by 100%. Obviously, that was the first action-step by the Governor towards improving travel time in the state.
Sanwo-Olu being is a surveyor who understands the importance of taking a proper measurement and managing space, of which, they are critical to traffic mamanagement, but he started by motivating the LASTMA officials. That seems to be a good move even though their reputation has been dented over the years.
LASTMAN officials, arguably, have been part of the Lagos traffic problem in many ways than one. The incessant stopping of vehicles on the slightest mistake by Lagos drivers is appalling. At this point, when drivers are caught, they are taken to their office and are expected to pay huge fines.
From this beginning, Sanwo-Olu must fish-out scrupulous LASTMA officials who have enriched themselves at the expense of drivers, if he must achieve this agenda.
They break the law at ease and rewrite the codes in their various checkpoints and offices. That group must be properly sanitized as it would play a significant role.
Further, it now imperative to start doing real homework, increasing allowances is scratching the surface. Now, Sanwo-Olu must start digging the surface.
Although, prior to his assumption, Sanwo-Olu had suggested that one of the solutions is, ”when the road is blocked, extend this one to be six lanes and the other free one two lanes to ease the traffic.”
“You can solve all these problems without even building some of those things that can take you one or two years to build,” Sanwo Olu said.
According to Sanwo-Olu, he had consulted with experts who have identified major areas peculiar with traffic gridlocks in the mega city and plans had already been put in place to design quick fixes in the affected areas.
“It is not that this will solve all the traffic problems but we can design quick fixes, which is similar to the model that we use in some of the toll plazas.
It is going to take a lot of patience and enforcement because you know people also don’t obey things, we don’t have enough road signs and signage, all of those ones will come, but we can design things quickly.
“We have identified major gridlock areas and what kind of interventions we are going to have. These are some of our quick ways, high on impact in our views and we are going to push it in the first six months.It is going to take patience and a lot of enforcement.
We are also going to look at how to have a good mass transit system but it is not going to happen overnight,” Sanwo-Olu said.
The collaboration with LASTMA significant and commendable, however, unscrupulous elements in the system must be left out. The Governor has started well in this regard and hopefully, Lagosians will start to shuttle the state without so much stress.