The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Lagos State Sector Command, has commended the Federal Government’s commitment to the Lagos-Ibadan standard rail line.
Mr Hyginus Omeje, the sector commander, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Monday in Lagos that the project, when completed, would end perennial gridlock and truck-related accidents in and around the state.
“Only inter-modal transport system will help the country to move forward,” Omeje said.
According to him, road infrastructure in the country has been overstretched and only water transport and railway system development will bring succour to the people.
The FRSC boss also called for the revisiting of Jakande Metro Line in Lagos to move public transport and safety forward in the state.
“The long term solution to gridlock and truck-related accidents on highways is the rail. We thank the Federal Government for starting the Lagos-Ibadan standard rail line.
“If we have that rail line from Apapa to Ibadan, what we should be looking at is a place where we can open a dry port in Ibadan so that these containers and everything coming to the port will be moved from there.
“From Ibadan, they will be moved to factories where they are needed. By so doing, we reduce the number of trucks in Lagos and several hazards and risks will be prevented.
“Also, we can open up the inland waterways. What Nigeria needs is inter-modal transport system, but everything is road-based now and the roads over stretched,” he said.
On Jakande Metro Line, the FRSC boss said that the state government needed to see how to provide a master transport system that could commute many people.
“All these small commercial buses and tricycles and `O Pay’ commercial motorcyclists and others that we are operating are not going to help us.
“We need to do away with all these ones. We need to have a metro line that is working. We need to invest more on high-capacity buses as the state has started to phase out commercial buses,” he added.
Omeje described the available high-capacity buses in the state as just a drop in the ocean, saying that high capacity buses were being used for urban mass transportation.
“The Lagos State Government has started well but needs to improve more on it. We need more of those high capacity buses to take the yellow buses off the road.
“If we could edge out “Molue” buses, we can also edge out commercial buses. The number of high capacity buses is still few, we need more,” Omeje added.
