TheCable

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, says the construction of the red line rail project would be completed and ready for use before the end of his first term in office.

The construction update — provided by Sanwo-Olu on Tuesday after inspecting work on the red line project and vehicular overpass bridges at Yaba and Oyingbo train stations — comes nearly two months after the state commissioned the blue line rail.

The red line is part of the Lagos rail mass transit (LRMT) scheme.

It is a 37 Kilometer rail route proposed to run from Agbado to Marina with 13 stations in Agbado, Iju, Agege, Ikeja, MMIA International, MMIA domestic, Oshodi, Mushin, Yaba, Ebute-Metta, Iddo, Ebute Ero, and Marina.

Sanwo-Olu, speaking to journalists on work progress, also said the Ebute-Metta vehicular bridge overpass was 75 percent to 80 percent completed, while that of Yaba was 95 percent completed.

He expressed belief that after the completion of the projects, accidents such as the recent train-bus collision in Ikeja, would not recur.

“We believe we are still on track. We believe it should be ready before the end of our first term depending on when we want to commission it,” Sanwo-Olu said.

“We will be doing a lot of testing, and signalisation because these road tracks will also be working with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), operating a train from Ebute-Metta in Lagos to Ibadan.

“We need to be able to harmonise a lot of signalisation between our rail infrastructure and the NRC rail infrastructure.

“All the vehicular overpass bridges are very important because of the unfortunate train and bus accident that we saw a few weeks ago at Shogunle. So, all these bridges we are building, apart from the fact that they are full vehicular bridges, are also to stop trains, vehicles, and passengers needing to interact.

“The highest grade of ensuring that you completely remove any contact with rail is when you build a complete alternative mode of transportation for passengers, pedestrians, and vehicles.”

Sanwo-Olu also expressed satisfaction with the level of work on the rail route, which is in its first phase from Oyingbo to Agbado.

He said the state government would intensify efforts to educate and enlighten traders along the right of way of the red line rail of the dangers of being there.

Meanwhile, the governor was re-elected for a second term after polling over 700,000 votes to defeat his opponents in the recent Lagos governorship elections.