Lagos approves 400 BRT buses for Ikorodu route (Greek Gift?)

The management of the Bus Rapid Transit project has announced that it plans to deploy about 400 buses to move over 300,000 passengers daily on the Ikorodu route.

The Managing Director, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, Dr. Dayo Mobereola, who announced this in a statement on Tuesday, noted that the service would run from Mile 12 to Ikorodu.

Speaking during an inspection of the project, he explains that already, the project which has reached an advanced stage, is a 13.5 kilometre-long corridor, with 15 bus shelters and a modern bus depot garage built on five hectares of land.

He added that there were three terminals at Mile 12, Agric and Ikorodu, six pedestrian bridges at Owode, Irawo, Awori, Majidun-Ogolonto, Agric and Haruna, 12 U-turn points (six on each side), provision of at-grade crossings, street lightings and signalised junctions at Ikorodu, Agric and Ogolonto.

The LAMATA boss said the BRT median operation had a lot of advantages over the current BRT system from Mile 12 to CMS, adding that it would be faster, safe and efficient.

In order to ensure the participation of women in the operation, he directed that modality for employing and training women as drivers, bus assistants and mechanics should be worked out.

He said, “There should be a reasonable number of women in this operation. They could be drivers, bus assistants and even mechanics. Women pay more attention to details. I believe that if the working condition is right, they will like to be part of the bus operation.

“So I will want the team to come up with modality for achieving the employment of women.”

He, however, sought the patience of the passengers and road users as the project construction moved towards completion, and asked stakeholders to bear with the state government as the contractor working on the project intensified effort to complete it.

Mobereola acknowledged that the project had been a little behind schedule, attributing the delay to weather which impacted negatively on the project completion, but assured that the project would be completed before the end of the first quarter of 2015.

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