By Olasunkanmi Akoni
Governor Babatunde Fashola, while addressing large crowd at the commemoration of his 2,700 days in office and account of stewardship of his administration within the last 100 days in Ikeja, attributed the failure to commence work on the red rail line to uncooperative posture of the Federal Government.

The red rail line project is proposed to run on the existing Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) corridor from Iddo to Ikeja and terminates at Agbado.

“We are yet to commence work on the red rail line because of the slow approval process of the corridor by the Federal Government. As soon as we get the approval we will commence work on the roject.”

Fashola who also reacted to the recent statement released by the Federal Government which put the debt profile of Lagos at N160 billion as loan obtained by the state from the World Bank, challenged the FG to return the sum of N51 billion that the state government expended on federal roads, nothing that the debt burden of the state will be less and that the state will have less to burrow if that money is returned even as he stressed the state maintained a healthy debt profile.

The Lagos Rail Mass Transit, LRMT, network is a major component of the Strategic Transport Master Plan, STMP, which has been developed to guide as a compass for the development of public transport infrastructures in the State. The STMP is a 30 year plan put together under series of intensive researches, studies and analyses of future transportation demands and needs of Lagos State as Nigeria’s commercial and economic hub and one of the world’s fastest growing mega cities.

Lagos State, with an estimated population of 22 million people is currently faced with the challenge of mass transit due to ever increasing population.

Consequently, government embarked on massive upgrading of its inter-modal transport system which comprises of roads, water, rail and recently, Public Private Partnership (PPP) cable-car initiative.

The state government is proposing seven rail lines network for Lagos in the continued search for an enduring public transportation system for mass movement of people. Of these seven, two seem to be critical. They are the Blue, Red rail line corridors covering major axes of high commuter traffic demand.

The blue rail line, to run from Marina, Lagos Island to Okokomaiko, Ojo Local Government Area has reached advanced stage of completion.

The second line, the Red Line is anticipated to operate with 12-car trains between 2010 and 2015. It is expected to begin as a double line at Marina and runs through Ebute Ero ending at Iddo. It then runs northwards via a reverse curve to reach Ebute Metta. It then runs straight to Yaba, Mushin and Oshodi before reaching Ikeja.

At the Ikeja station, the Red Line is expected to link the line from the international and domestic airport terminal. From Ikeja, a single line will run to the airport terminals. The Red Line then moves as a double line further northwards from Ikeja to pass through Agege, Iju and finally reaches Agbado.

Initially, the Blue Line will carry 400,000 passengers daily with capacity increased to 700,000 passengers daily when the rail route becomes fully operational. To incorporate the use of EMUs, a depot including power generating plant has been proposed for construction at the final western most station, Okokomaiko.