Lagos Promises Functional Light Rail by December 2016

In a statement released by the Lagos State Government on the 18th of February, Governor Ambode restated his administration’s commitment to ensure that the Blue Line of the Light Rail Project would be up and running by December 2016. Speaking at the 5th Lagos Corporate Assembly, a forum for public-private sector engagement, he discredited claims that work had stopped on the first phase of the project connecting Mile 2 to CMS.

The Blue Line is a part of the Lagos Urban Rail Network that consists of 7 railways lines planned along priority and high commuter demand corridors in Lagos. It will run between the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, which is also being expanded to a 10-lane road. According to the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), will carry 400,000 passengers daily and eventually grow to 700,000 passengers when the rail route becomes fully operational. The trains that will be used are Electric Multiple Units (EMUs).

If completed as planned, the Blue Line will take passengers from Okokomaiko to Marina, with 13 stations including National Theatre, Mile 2, FESTAC, Trade Fair, Lagos State University (LASU) and more. This major infrastructural project has the ability to support exponential growth across the Western corridor of Lagos; one which has been relatively ignored in the past. The residential sector in this region should enjoy a large part of this growth if more people relocate to this region as a result of the improved transport infrastructure. Other sectors including retail and industrial will also benefit and investors such as UPDC (Festival Mall, FESTAC) and Momentum/Eris (Agbara Industrial Estate) with investments in and around the region should soon be able to testify.