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The Lagos State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Obafemi Hamzat, has outlined plans to move one million passengers daily through an expanded bus rapid transit system as part of efforts to reduce commuting difficulties across the state.
Hamzat said his transportation plan would involve increasing the number of compressed natural gas (CNG) buses from the current 1,000 to 4,000, alongside the development of additional bus rapid transit (BRT) lanes.
He disclosed this on Sunday during the Lagos governorship debate organised by the Nigeria Debate Consortium, comprising Channels Television, TVC News, The PUNCH, TheCable and Vanguard Newspapers.
Explaining the objective of the proposal, the incumbent Deputy Governor said the government wanted to reduce the time residents spend travelling so they could have more time for other activities.
“The plan is to give back time to the citizens to plan, to rest, to spend with their family. There’s nowhere in Africa that the private sector has funded a rail,” he said.
Hamzat noted that the BRT system had recorded 77 million journeys since its introduction, using 1,000 buses.
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He said the plan was to expand the fleet and increase the number of passengers the system could carry daily.
“Since BRT started, it has done 77 million journeys; that is with 1,000 buses. My plan says we will push it to 4,000 buses; the idea is to move one million people a day with 4,000 CNG buses, meaning up to 5,000, create BRt lane from Marina to Epe, from Marina to Badagry and so on and so forth,” he said.
The APC candidate also highlighted the importance of integrating different transport services to make commuting easier for residents.
He said more than four million people already had Cowry cards, which could be used across the state’s ferry, rail and BRT services.
“Today, over four million people have the Cowry card. What does that mean? It means you can use ferry, you can use rail, and you can use BRT buses — one payment — so that we can deal with how to subsidise it,” he added.
Hamzat said the integrated system would help improve connectivity and make public transportation more accessible to Lagos residents.
