The Bus Reform Initiative of the Lagos State Administration will commence within the next six months with an introduction of an initial 5,000 buses to be placed on different routes within Lagos.
Governor Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos State revealed this information while addressing students from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, United States of America, who paid him a courtesy visit at the Lagos House in Ikeja.
Ambode said his government was making concerted efforts to give the transport system in Lagos a wholistic turn-round and make it easy for Lagosians to move around the metroplis easily.
He said “In the last one year, we have decided that we must integrate rail, road, water and air transportation systems in such a way that the system of connectivity is improved upon and I would like to have a direct partnership on how that can actually be actualised.
“Right now, we are cleaning out all the yellow buses you see in the state. As we proceed in the next six months and a span of three years, we are introducing 5000 new buses of European standard to actually clean up the city because if you want to grow the economy of Lagos, transportation is key and then it’s a major infrastructure for tourism itself.”
Speaking further, he said “…the way the city has been so designed in the last few years, the city has actually concentrated on only one mode of transportation, which is road transportation.
There has not been any comprehensive planning to integrate all the modes of transportation in a way that makes it easy. There are eight million people walking on the streets of Lagos every minute. Did we create more points for them? The answer is no.”
“We have one-fifth of the state on water. Are we doing effective water transportation? The answer is no.”
“The rail system is still under construction in such a way that it can move mass number of people from one point to another. That is why we have a whole lot of congestion on the road”
He said his administration had currently embarked on a series of intervention to improve road transportation network through the creation of more bus terminals, lay-bys and bus stops to for the take-off of the Bus Reform Initiative.
He further said that this would also be complemented by reforms his government was making concerning water transportation system and such would be fully operational within the next six to nine months, to encourage residents to utilise it as an alternative means of transportation.
