TheCable

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, says residents will pay between N200 and N300 for train tickets in the state.

Sanwo-Olu spoke when he featured on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme on Friday.

Speaking on his administration’s plan for transportation in 2022, the governor said the vision of his government is to reduce traffic and the time commuters spend on the road.

On the metro rail project, he said the government will make the ticket fare affordable for residents.

“Time is money and we need to move millions of people in Lagos from one corridor to another. The vision is to reduce travel time and gridlock on the road,” he said.

“And be able to do a better journey planning where you can predict pretty much this journey will take you 25 minutes, 30 minutes, not the one you get lost on the road that we have now and you are there for 2, 3 hours.

“I don’t think citizens will be breaking their backs. It will be affordable; N200, N250. It probably won’t be more than that.

“I really cannot say because the fare structure will be where you are joining to where you are hopping off. Typically, it won’t be more than what you are running on your BRT lines today. It certainly cannot be more than that. For it to be accessible, affordability is critical for people to make it a better option.

“Now, it is quicker instead of you staying one hour on the road, it’s going to take you 20 minutes which comes with a lot of benefits. Affordability is critical, it’s not going to be in the thousands. So, you will still be in your regular N200, N300 per journey and that is what we are looking at.

“At best, if our operators say that ‘No, Mr Governor, it is more expensive’. We can do financing metrics… I will give you a longer tenure time to be able to defray your cost but keep it affordable for our citizens.”

The governor also said the state will start testing the blue rail lines this year, adding that terminal stations will also be ready by the fourth quarter of the year.

“And by the grace of God, we will also be completing the blue line. What Lagosians are expecting from us will be actively working with trains — two rail lines by the first quarter of this year,” he said.

“We would have started testing by this year. If we don’t bring passengers on, it will be for security reasons. The trains will be on track by the 4th quarter, the terminal stations will be ready by the fourth quarter.

“It will probably be like things around communication that we are trying to test. We will probably be doing some test run by the end of this quarter.”

Last Wednesday, the government announced that it purchased two Series 8 trains for the red line train project as part of efforts to ease transportation in the state.