With much fanfare greeting the scheduled inauguration of the Lagos Red Line Rail System by the Lagos State Government, details have emerged that operations on the line will commence much later.
In a THISDAY report, it was hinted that though infrastructure works will be commissioned on Thursday, February 29th, operations are not expected to start immediately.
This is not much of a surprise for public infrastructure works in Lagos State. Recall that when the Oshodi interchange was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari, it took a while before the project came to life. Same applies to the Blue Line, which commenced operations on a later date after it was commissioned.
Speaking to journalists during an inspection of the project, Sanwo-Olu stated that the 37km rail track was ready for inauguration, even as he noted that some residents have refused to vacate the rail area moves by the government to evit them to clear the path for operations.
According to him: “This is our final inspection at the Ikeja train station and we just finished another test train ride on the Red Line, using one of the trains. And we have had a journey till Iju and back.
“So we still have a few cleanings to do inside the train because they still have wrappers around it. We will continue to test the air conditioning which is working because they all came from different climatic weathers.
“Other than that, it is the challenge around pedestrians on the track that we are dealing with.
“We will continue to install physical barricades on those lines, working with the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), but the message here is really for our citizens living virtually on the track that, a track is not a place of residence or commercial activities, we should continue to tell people to stay off it and we will continue to enforce it, and continue to ensure that we clear the tracks because we do not want to record any fatality,
On the regularity of trips on the train routes, he said: “Once the intra train starts, it is no longer be for every two hours or three hours; it’s going to be fairly regular, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. We don’t want them to be comfortable that they have to stay on the track. It’s not a place for people to stay.”