Road junction improvements, moral burden of enlightenment, advocacy and enforcement of rule of law – Gbenga Onabanjo

Within the first six months of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration, he organised the first-ever traffic summitin Lagos, where experts in traffic management, town planners and architects from both the public and private sectors presented various papers on how to tackle the traffic problems in Lagos.

A communiqué in which the flowing assertions were made was issued after the summit:

The outcome of this summit resulted in the various junction improvements within the state. The aftermath of the summit was the radical shift from the traditional roundabouts, bequeathed to us by Britain, to signalised junctions, a pro-American initiative. One is largely dependent on the availability of power for the signals, whilst the other is dependent on drivers’ discipline and enlightenment.

For a city like Lagos, where the availability of constant power is still a challenge, the signalised junctions are bound to have their setbacks because alternative power backups are not in place.

The interventions started with the scrapping of all the roundabouts along the Lagos-Epe expressway. For a tolled road, the writer expected that the first option for consideration would be flyoversacross these junctions, whilst maintaining the roundabouts. Though this option is capital intensive, it is believed that the investments could easily be realised from the toll collections over a period of time.

For multilane roundabouts to be effective, motorists should know the rules guiding driving round the roundabouts—which lanes to keep to when making a turn and when going straight across. It is equally important for motorists to know who has the right of way at the circle. All these rely on driver education and enlightenment for these measures be effective. Sadly, there were no enlightenment campaigns for the users when these roundabouts were constructed, hence the disastrous outcome of their use. The misuse was therefore largely based on the ignorance of the users.

Till date, Great Britain and all her former colonies still use roundabouts and they are all very effective because of driver education and the enforcement of the rule of law.

I believe that before we opt for a new system, a SWOT analysis of the system should first be carried out. The inherent weaknesses should be considered. If these weaknesses cannot be eliminated or significantly reduced, then we should settle for a system largely within our control.

The signalised junctions along the Lagos-Epe expressway typically fall short of expectations because of the following reasons:

There is therefore a compelling need for motorists, motorcyclists and even pedestrians to be educated as ignorance plays a prominent part in the “misuse” of these junctions.

There equally must be an enforcement of the rule of law against errant motorists and motorcyclists who disobey traffic rules with impunity. Until these measures are put in place, driving along our signalised junctions will remain a nightmare.

Onabanjo is the founder of GO-FORTE FOUNDATION, an organisation dedicated to the restoration of the environment.

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