We will not relent until we restore sanity to Apapa port roads — Sanwoolu
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By Aisha Cole/Florence Onuegbu
The Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-olu, has said that his administration would not rest until they bring perpetrators of Apapa gridlock to book.
Sanwo-Olu made the disclosure during the inauguration of the newly reconfigured Lekki First, Second and Abraham Adesanya Roundabouts in Lagos on Wednesday.
He commended the support of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and other maritime stakeholders, while pleading with the terminal operators such as Dangote, Flour Mills, Sifax and Folawiyo Group, among others, to assist in achieving their mandate.
“Our promise to solve transportation and gridlock in Lagos, especially Apapa, we will do it well. We are going to stay there, we are going to put resources there and ensure we do what will make Apapa port access road free of traffic.
” We are not commissioning Lekki/Epe routes, we are handing over because it is part of our campaign promises and infrastructure that we have done.
” Why we are hanging over traffic improvement infrastructure is because these are campaign promises to ease transportation and traffic management in Lagos. So we are putting infrastructure in place to reduce travel time.
“It is very deliberate from First, Second and Abraham Adesanya Roundabouts, everybody in this corridor have smooth movements.
” Apart from the reconfigured of some Roundabouts, we also did drainage improvement,” Sanwo-Olu said.
In his opening remarks, the Commissioner for Environment, Dr Frederic Oladeinde, said that reconfiguring of some Lekki Roundabouts was testimonial to Mr Governor’s belief, trust, and confidence in the ministry as government agency saddled with the responsibility of driving the ongoing reforms in the transport sector.
Oladeinde recalled that part of the report submitted by the Transition Committee was the identification of 60 traffic gridlock areas in the metropolis, which needed urgent government attention.
” One of the solutions recommended to Mr Governor was the reconfiguration and remodelling of some of the existing roundabouts and junctions that could no longer cope with the current volume of vehicles that ply them.
” The improvement works was planned to allow for more vehicular movements especially during peak hours.
“It was discovered that most of the existing roundabouts/ junctions were prepared mainly for manual traffic control system; which in reality, could not meet the 21st century technology driven traffic control system needed in an emerging smart city with fast growing population like ours,” Oladeinde said.
He said that with the governor’s support, commitment, hard work and great leadership, six major Junction/Roundabout Improvement Projects have been successfully completed, with three already delivered for public use.
Oladeinde added that these include: Allen Avenue Roundabout, Maryland Junction and Ikotun Roundabout.
He added that there has been significant improvement in traffic management along these corridors as commuters’ travel time was saved since the completion of these Junction/Roundabout Improvement projects,
Also speaking, the Managing Director, Planet Project Ltd, Mr Biodun Otunola, said that the mandate was to remove the two roundabouts and turn it to junction.
“Lekki first and second roundabouts consist of 1.4 kilometers of road, we have been able to rehabilitate 47, 000 square roots, 550 meters of drainages clear of 4 meters, walkway of 4.1 kilometers.
” We have been able to constructs 30 traffic light across board, over 100 traffic sign, 27 street lights and road mapping over 40 kilometers,”Otunola said.
He said that before now it takes about an hour to move from one junction to another, adding that now it takes about less than 15 minutes after the reconfiguring exercise.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Kamar Olowoshago, in his closing remarks, said the commissioning of these projects was one of the early intervention programmes for efficient traffic management and control.
Olowoshago said the rehabilitation would bring significant improvements to the traffic situation on these corridors.
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