By Uche Nnadozie
What was thought impossible has unravelled before our eyes. It’s how safe and smooth driving around the heart of Ikeja, capital of Lagos state has become.
Hitherto, a drive through Ikeja under bridge, Kodeso, General Hospital (Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH), Obafemi Awolowo Way, Oba Akran, Simbiat Abiola, Ikeja Along, Mobolaji Bank-Anthony, among others was hell on earth. To make matters worse, the ever expanding Lagos Computer Village, Ikeja is at the centre of the clog-in-the wheel of an everyday driver.
Today, not just that the Computer Village has expanded, other commercial centres have emerged. The Anifowose cluster, the imposing Ikeja terminal of the Lagos Red Line metro, the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed airport, the BRT terminal and Jara Mall are all within the area which ordinarily should engender more traffic snarl.
Good enough, a future-minded Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu came around. In working for posterity, he decided to solve the traffic challenge of the entire area with one big stone efficiently aimed. And what a pleasant experience it has become!
With the construction of the T-shaped overpass connecting Ikeja under bridge along Obafemi Awolowo Way to the popular Ikeja along on Agege Motor Road/Abeokuta Expressway, Sanwo-Olu and his team used one stone to kill many gridlock birds.
In starting the Red Line, the Lagos government undertook to change the manner vehicles and pedestrians pass through level crossings by a complete elimination of any interference of train movement.
Instead of the usual level-crossing, the governor preferred overhead bridges. For the Ikeja axis, it just happened that the area is probably the busiest along the 37km long train corridor. As many commercial and traffic inducing activities take place around the area.
Also being a major transport interchange and with the fully built up neighbourhood, it was difficult to find a balance and engineer a way out of logjams which bewitched Ikeja for many years.
With the T-shaped bridge, logjams fizzled out on the Agege Motor Road, Kodeso, Oba Akran and Obafemi Awolowo Way. Except there is a man-made traffic disruption, the area is now a driving miracle.
In peak periods, even if there is any slow-down, it’s down to the deluge of vehicles not as a result of clogs occasioned by bad roads or insufficient outlets. The bridge has solved a perennial problem within a short period.
In town planning and traffic management, what has happened on Obafemi Awolowo Way/Agege Motor Road is a miracle. But this is one miracle that was solved by forward thinking and engineering innovation.
It is a welcome development that will help resolve such gridlock in other parts of the state. Experts should sit down to look at entire areas holistically to resolve a nagging problem with a fine stroke rather than a fire brigade which leads to waste of money compounding the same problem just a few years down the line.
For efficient traffic management, gridlock resolution, town planning efficiency, Sanwo-Olu aced this project. It’s a model to copy even by other states.