By Olawale Abdul-Fatah
Understanding benefits of less travel time to commerce, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has said that his administration will embark on any policy and strategy that can rid the State of gridlocks.
Sanwo-Olu reassured residents of Lagos that aside present strategies adopted by his administration, other strategies were being sorted to reduce travel time in the state.
The governor gave the assurance yesterday while inspecting removal of 2nd Lekki roundabout as part of the road reconfiguration to achieve free flow of vehicular movements along the Lekki corridors.
Sanwo-Olu, while at the project site, encouraged the contractors handling the projects to keep up with the current pace of work so as to ensure its completion in record time.
Aside from the 2nd Lekki roundabout, the state government has also commenced removal of three other roundabouts identified as the major causes of traffic gridlock being experienced by motorists.
The other roundabouts were Ikotun, Allen Avenue roundabout and Maryland were others to be removed for road expansion and free flow of traffic.
Earlier, Ministry of transportation explained that the removal of some roundabouts and street furniture including billboards will give room for road expansion and strategically ease off traffic congestion in some parts of the metropolis.
Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Fredrick Oladeinde, who accompanied the Governor to inspect the project, described the decision to improve the junctions as a strategic repositioning of the roads to ease traffic congestion.
According to him, the government started off through discovery of 60 traffic gridlocks junctions and areas across the state.
He told journalists that: “Sufficiently, the junction improvement work that is being conducted on the four roundabouts includes the following:
“Removal of roundabouts, separate streams of traffic through Traffic Signal Lights, (TSL) synchronize all TSLs through intelligent traffic systems which will recognise the densities of traffic streams and give priorities accordingly.
“Introduce stacking lanes for both left and right turns at these junctions which will also contribute to increasing the capacities of our roads at the junctions thereby reducing travel time”.
Meanwhile, Sanwo-Olu also visited the Lekki coastal roads to ascertain the level of work done by men of the State’s environmental Task Force, who had gone earlier to clean up the illegal structures built on the right of way.
Satisfied with level of enforcement, Sanwo-Olu assured residents that the government will immediately move in and start work in the area to avoid further encroachment and illegal occupation of the large expanse of land.
