Mr Babatunde Fashola, former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, has advised Lagos State Government to include traffic education in the school curriculum to change traffic orientation in the state.
Fashola gave the advice on Thursday at the 4th Radio Traffic Lecture series with the theme: “Lagos Beyond Roads; The Intermodal Transport Option”.
The former minister spoke as the special guest speaker on a topic: “Inter-modal Mobility for Lagos Today and Tomorrow”.
Fashola urged the present administration to build on the successes recorded in water, rail and road network in the state.
After highlighting several problems of infrastructure challenge and traffic management in the state, he stressed the need to change orientation of the next generation toward adherence to traffic regulations.
Fashola urged the state Deputy Governor, Dr Obafemi Hamzat and the Ministry of Education to take Highway Code and the Lagos State Traffic Law and develop a curriculum so that our children could learn.
“We must start training the next generation for doing better than we have, perhaps done,” the former minister and the state former governor said.
He commended the Traffic Radio for staying afloat and keeping up with the vision for which it was established when he was in the office as governor.
Fashola urged them to begin an educational traffic programme, saying that, the station could partner with its sponsors to attach reward to it and make it interactive to change attitudes.
“I lay the challenge for Traffic Radio to start a transport education programme like classroom on radio for adults,” he said.
The former governor called for sustained road maintenance and deployment of LASTMA to important huge traffic bearing roads which he referred to as “the central spines of Lagos”.
Fashola said that ferry and rail services started in Lagos under the leadership of Alhaji Lateef Jakande.
He said his administration did its best in constructing new jetties, adding that the tempo should be sustained to meet the teeming population of Lagos.
In his contributions, Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, said that the state government was committed to the completion of both the Red and Blue rail line projects on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway 10 lanes project.
Sanwo-Olu said that mass migration to Lagos caused gridlock as well as economic opportunities needed to grow the Gross Domestic Product of the state, hence the concern of government to harness inter-modal transportation.
“Intermodal transport is the way to go for traffic management for economic growth,” the governor, represented by his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, responded to some concerns raised by Fashola.
He said that the state was restrained by huge funding implications of harnessing water, rail and road components of its infrastructure, but had designed creative ways to fund infrastructure.
“Within the last few weeks, we have had promising discussions with various groups of investors who have expressed their intention to invest in the transport sector, especially in water transport sub-sector,’’ he said.
According to him, this sector is grossly underutilised in terms of harnessing its economic potential.
“Unless we are creative, it would take the budget of Lagos State the next seven years to complete inter-modal transportation,” the governor said.
Sanwo-Olu said that the new bus routes were created for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the state to increase mass transportation and harness the enormous water bodies’ resources in the state. (NAN)