How Governor Ambode can improve Lagos traffic in just three months
Since the end of Nigeria’s civil war, the population of Lagos has multiplied. So has the volume of automobiles on its roads, and sitting in traffic daily has become a significant drain on state, regional and national productivity. The following are a few thoughts on how the authorities can improve the situation in a […]
Since the end of Nigeria’s civil war, the population of Lagos has multiplied.
So has the volume of automobiles on its roads, and sitting in traffic daily has become a significant drain on state, regional and national productivity.
The following are a few thoughts on how the authorities can improve the situation in a few months.
The first thing is to acknowledge that while there seems to be terrible traffic everywhere, different factors are responsible for it. Lagos needs more, and better roads, for sure, but what it needs the most is better management of what exists.
To that end, my first proposal is the elimination of the menace of street parking, particularly in commercial and business areas, between 6am and 8p.m.
Where would workers park? In public and commercial parking garages. These structures, which can be above or below ground, or both, and capable of accommodating thousands of vehicles at the same time, take a short time to build. Not only would they empty the streets of needless parking, they would make a lot of money because anyone who parks on the street can either pay for commercial parking.
The state and local government authorities can lead the way by converting available land into such facilities, charging appropriate hourly/daily or monthly rent as determined by law. Such facilities must of course be properly constructed and managed, with security coverage available around the clock.
What this means is that municipal parking can become a business of its own, the government granting licenses based on location and need. It would also determine specifications for categories of approvals, but let the market govern parking fees.
The state should also consider amending the law to require businesses and offices of a certain kind, or which have a certain volume of employees, to provide a minimum number of parking spaces in their premises. Given the vast profits our banks make, for instance, it is ridiculous that they rarely provide parking for their customers.
On the contrary,any such space they have is taken up by their staff, leaving their customers to fight it out on the streets every time they visit. One new rule should be that bank staff (right up to the Managing Director, whom I am sure would not mind at all) park in a commercial garage, leaving their parking space to business customers.
But the objective must be firm: to clear the sidewalks and the streets, making them available for traffic to move much more smoothly than it does now.
Should the government consider this proposal favourably, there are also vast public gains to be made from ridding the streets of vehicles perennially parked on covered drains. Where available, as in parts of Ikoyi and the old Victoria Island, those drains were built a long time ago-modern governments preferring the laziness of open drains-and many of them have since been damaged or clogged by trash, enhancing flooding.
With the covered drains having been converted into parking spaces, they are rarely available to city engineers who wish to examine or clean them. But under the proposed scheme, that would be another victory: the unburdened drains would be available for inspection, cleaning and repair. Furthermore, in many areas, the new regulation will give back walkways and bicycle lanes to those who wish to walk, run or bike.
In this regard, one of the best things Governor Akinwunmi Ambode can do for Ikeja, for instance, is at the intersection of Allen Avenue and Obafemi Awolowo Way, where the old Alade Market used to be. The site, which is currently vacant, would be ideal for a parking garage capable of holding thousands of vehicles-in addition to restaurant, business and entertainment floors-and a transportation terminal.
That is if you are designing with an eye on a functional Ikeja in 40 or 50 years. Such a vision would further help to improve traffic in the area if it is also engineered to take in traffic from, and empty out, into its four major streets. Parking taxes will pay for those improvements in just a few years.
Another proposal is that the city of Lagos establish a new regime of clearly-marked one-way streets in areas with identified problems. This would mean not only that vehicles enter such a street from one direction, but also that parking-where permitted-be done facing the same direction. This will eliminate gridlocks and tied-up roads arising from drivers coming to blows, or head to head, on narrow roads.
Now, most Lagos drivers are outlaws, seeking undue advantage over other drivers, but under this regime, which may be given a test-run of perhaps one or two months, a driver who is caught flouting the regulation should be made to pay large fines, structured in such a way that their licenses or vehicles can be impounded following three or four violations.
In my view, the very same kind of punishment should be doubled for policemen and government officials found trying to exploit the system for their personal benefit. A regime of this nature will yield both improved traffic flow as well as considerable financial benefit for the authorities.
Now, street cleaning. It is important that the Lagos State government is finally coming to terms with cleaning its major streets. But street-cleaning and the battle to keep traffic moving are different agenda items, and do not necessarily go together. Street-sweeping is best in the off-hours between 11p.m and 5a.m when, protected with appropriate security arrangements, including large signs and lowered speed limits, cleaners can work unimpeded.
In the end, solving the Lagos traffic menace will require significant infrastructure investment, including the rail efforts now under way. But some creative re-thinking and collaboration, led by responsible governments, can accomplish a lot. In Maryland, for instance, someone has built a helipad in the middle of the chaos, with the airport just a couple of miles away.
But Mobolaji Bank Anthony has been a congested two-lane, small-town pass for too long, and the police, which have their training school on it, sometimes drive the wrong way to beat the traffic.
But this is 2017, not 1960, and it is time for the government to buy off and relocate the two petrol stations at Maryland, and eliminate the traffic there by restructuring movement.
Surely, this is not brain surgery? The police, Air Force and Board of Customs are the major entities with physical presence on the road, and it should be no problem to obtain their cooperation and assistance to rebuild it into a befitting, functional and modern eight-lane road to the international airport terminal.
It is 2017, and there are only these choices before us: dream big, or stay small.
· Twitter: @SonalaOlumhense