N29bn Mile 12-Ikorodu road project ready this year

Ongoing Mile 12-Ikorodu road expansion will be completed and delivered to the public by the end of 2014, a source in the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), the project supervising agency, told BusinessDay on Monday.

According to the source, who preferred anonymity, the project is almost 90 percent complete, and given the pace of work, before the end of this year, Lagosians will have a new road that will bring the long expected relief from the tortuous experience of many years. The source said the facility will further open up that axis, make Ikorodu accessible and reduce the gridlock associated with that part of Lagos.

Long before now, the major demand of millions of residents of Ikorodu from the government was the reconstruction of the road to respond to the population explosion along that corridor.

The state government with a World Bank loan eventually awarded the N29 billion contract and mobilised the contractor, Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Corporation (CCECC), to site in 2012 to undertake the expansion of the 50-year-old road.

The 13.5km road project with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) component when commissioned would feature dedicated bus lanes, three interchange terminals, modern bus depot/garaging facilities, fully enclosed, bus shelters with step-free and gap-free boarding facilities.

There would also be 15 BRT stations at eight locations – Mile 12, Owode Onirin, Owode, Irawo, Majidun, Ogolonto, Agric and Haruna; the construction of three terminals at Mile 12, Agric and Ikorodu; the construction of 10 pedestrian bridges as well as the construction of a five-hectare modern bus depot at Majidun.