Lagos State Government, Thursday, said the second phase of the Blue Line Rail project, from Mile 2 to Okoko, which construction has started, will be completed in 2027.
The Managing Director of Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), Abimbola Akinajo, disclosed this at a press conference to mark LAMATA’s 20th anniversary.
According to Akinajo, despite the hiccups encountered with the first phase of the project, which is from Marina to Mile 2, it has been success stories since it commenced commercial operations on September 4.
She disclosed that as of November 29, over 400,000 passengers had patronised the rail system. She added that since the commercial operations commenced, there had not been delay in service, even when the service switched to electric mode of powering the train and doing 52 trips daily.
According to her, it is because of the successes recorded that the state government is already thinking of increasing the daily trips to 76. She said the Red Line infrastructure will be completed before the end of the year with test run starting in the first quarter of 2024.
According to her, the test-run of the Red Line will not take nine months like the first phase of the Blue Line because they already have the expertise.
She revealed that before the end of second quarter of 2024, commercial operations will start on the Red Line. She said the state government and the agency is on course in terms of deploying electric buses for commercial operations, disclosing that the challenges encountered in deploying additional buses are being addressed.
She said: “Within these 20 years, we have developed the Lagos Strategic Transport Master Plan (LSTMP), constructed, and operationalised the 13km and 34km Oshodi Abule Egba and Ikorodu CMS BRT Corridor respectively.
“We have implemented two of the six rail lines – Blue and Red – under our Lagos Rail Mass Transit (LRMT) project. In conjunction with MOT, LAMATA facilitated the development of the Lagos Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) policy, which the Lagos State Government approved in 2019.”