Good day all,
The traffic conjestion we are experienceing in lagos is becoming unbearable, people are now waking up as early as 3.30am to prepare for work at 8am, i think it is madness, whether you have a car or not, the situation is the same,expansion of roads and providing flyovers is short term considering the population of Nigeria, i think what the federal government should do is to provide infrastructure and logistics at other sea ports in nigeria like warri, port harcourt and calabar or ibaka, so that ships that are importing products into nigeria can berth there, then make a policy that will make ships divert to the other ports. i think it will take away a large chunk of traders, importing agents and banks from lagos. i need more suggetions, something must be done fast. Thank You

Nothing can be done to it. Its Life!!!

People are still going to go there regardless.

flies will always follow shit, only if the shit is there, take the shit away, the flies are gone!!!ideas onhow to take away the shit!!! thanks sean

BabaTony:

flies will always follow shit, only if the shit is there, take the shit away, the flies are gone!!!ideas onhow to take away the shit!!! thanks sean

Haha!!!

I think people feel there are more opportunities in Lagos _{(opportunities of which I don't really see)}, so the influx. As for reducing traffic congestion, the effective use of railway comes to mind.

_{I think the state governor should first berate his fellow governors especially those with the highest number of indigines in the state or those with little or no qualifications, for not providing conducive environment for their people!!!}

There is too much focus on lekki and victoria island region; the government should invest in social housing in new towns
with good transport links whereby people can wont feel they have to struggle too much to get to their place of work or business

In terms of transportation, the government can introduce stringent and higher M.O.T requirements for vehicle owners and even more stringent and more expensive vehicle license with compulsory insurance for transporters within the states, this wa thousands of cabu cabu (rickety cabs) and molues will be forced to quit the road or move to ogun state   then introduce alternative- clean conducive buses, metrail, ferry etc

more areas should be assigned business, residential and industrial districts, that way people are not struglling with coca-cola trucks on their way to school or banks operating in residential areas who usually don't have (adequate)parking space for their staff and customers

Introduce city centre charges like N1000 to drive through a particular area where there are sufficient alternative or even different routes and if you are the only one in a car or minivan you should be charged N2000 - underutilisation of capacity   between 8am-11am and 4pm-7pm

commercial building should be forced to build parking blocks to accommodate 1/4 of their office or shopfloors

and they should stop allocating land like there's no tomorrow the houses should be built like those in London- shoesize!!!

and pavements/walkways/sidewalks seems many of the contruction companies don't know what this is, it's not exactly expensive to include this in their proposals!!

stillwater:

I think people feel there are more opportunities in Lagos _{(opportunities of which I don't really see)}, so the influx. As for reducing traffic congestion, the effective use of railway comes to mind.

Firstly,i think they are opprotunities in Lagos, but the oppportunities are not unlimited, so so take for example 1000 people coming to lagos for 100 oppotunities, at the end of the day you will find the other 900 staying back (jobless) expecting their time to come in the process causing all sorts of accomodation and environmental problems for those who can afford to stay.thats one angle.


Secondly,

the Federal government has a major role to play in this because it has the powers to make policies to take away some businesses away from lagos, take for example a man from Onitsha does not need to import his goods through lagos state if the infrastructure at warri port or even port harcourt port is ok, there was even a policy one time that all imported goods into nigeria should come through Apapa, that alone brought so many people to lagos, Customs, truck drivers, clearing agents, importers, etc, all with their families. That alone was enough to swell the population of Lagos. Nigeria has a population of 140 million.

I think there should be a border around Lagos , all non indegenes should be flogged out ! then those interested should apply for a resisdence permit , which would be valid for one year subjected to renewal if you stayed as a good boy or girl . All the sharia infested people from the north littering my beloved state , no entry for them. Dem cut your leg for Zamfara, you come dey litter Lagos as beggers .

All the OYO boys and ara oke in general coming to Lagos to claim omo onile, cant stop to amaze me, which ile dem dey claim. They form the agbero Union, so they aint needed, dem ashana from south south should not infest us with HIV.

Some igbos for now, and Ogun indegenes would get permit faster.

That is how I will decongest Lagos if I am the governor

No hating plssssssssssssssssssssssssss

The only way to decongest Lagos is to destroy or spoil it, which obviously isn't acceptable.
Congestion is unavoidable in major cities. Don't live in Lagos if you don't like congestion!

Making tins expensive.Though,i don't know the consequences but i strongly believe it is easier.

Lagos has been left without proper monitoring over the years,

we have to go back to the scratch.

absolutley no hope for an insecured, hectic, crazy place like lagos. Never will i return to live there will rather stick with Abuja. Imagine waking up 4:00 am in the morning and getting back hope 11:00 pm at night simply because of flood and hold up. if one lives like that one would not see old age now!!!! When you are 50 in Lagos you look 85, simply cos of the stress!!!!!! Most people that stay in Lagos simply dont need to be there. It is the excess of humans the constitutes Agberos ,area boys and armed robbers,

We need to take the following steps to decongest Lagos:

1. Provision of fast speed trains (the Canadians, The Germans and the Japanese have built speed trains that can travel at speeds of about 435 Kilometer per hour, i.e like travelling from Lagos to Port Harcourt in an hour by train) as this will enable people to live as far away as Enugu and still work in Lagos. This will definitely cause people to migrate out of Lagos to places with cheaper accommodation.

2. Location of Industries. One of the reason why industries are sited in certain places is the existence of markets for the products produced. Thus with the decongestion of Lagos because of (1.) above, most industries can decide to relocate out of Lagos to new areas where people have moved to and this will further decongest Lagos.

3. Provision of Infrastructure in Rural areas. When govt. can provide world-class Telecommunication, Transportation, health facilities and security etc in rural areas, so that there is not much difference between living there and living in the city, then many able-bodied people will decide to reside there.

4. Adequate attention should be given to agriculture. when the agricultural sub-sector of our economy is given the attention it deserves and an organised market (e.g a Commodity Exchange) is created for the sales of agricultural products, then people in the rural areas can have a standard of living comparable, or even higher, to those living in cities like Lagos; for example in the United States, farmers are known to be very wealthy as they dispose of their crops through commodity exchanges rather than through middlemen who normally rip-off Nigerian farmers.

Good Post. The traffic is getting really unbearable. In 2004 when i moved to Ajah,in order to beat the traffice, I left home at 6.30am everyday and got to ikoyi by 7.00am, in 2005 i left ajah by 6am and got to ikoyi 6.30am In 2007, i left ajah 5.30am and got to Ikoyi between 6.15aam and 6.30am. Now i have to leave by 5am, and i still meet traffic and get to ikoyi by 6.30am - 6.45am.

You can do the maths about coming back.

This is becoming unbearable. More cars are coming into lagos, no additional roads, the available roads are over stretched and full of pot holes.The people that planned lagos never imagined this population. We are in trouble in the next five years, if nothing is done.

SUGGESTIONS

1. Like the poster said, make other ports functional and all the traders and middle men will run there.

2. Develop Satellite towns with enough facilities. Someone would be leaving in Epe and do all his business there etc, just like Kent, Hull, Oxford etc in England.

3. RAIL.- Too much lip service has been paid to this. until we develop this, we go just dey suffer dey go.

4. FERRY.

Dis Guy:

_{I think the state governor should first berate his fellow governors especially those with the highest number of indigines in the state or those with little or no qualifications, for not providing conducive environment for their people!!!}

There is too much focus on lekki and victoria island region; the government should invest in social housing in new towns
with good transport links whereby people can wont feel they have to struggle too much to get to their place of work or business

In terms of transportation, the government can introduce stringent and higher M.O.T requirements for vehicle owners and even more stringent and more expensive vehicle license with compulsory insurance for transporters within the states, this wa thousands of cabu cabu (rickety cabs) and molues will be forced to quit the road or move to ogun state then introduce alternative- clean conducive buses, metrail, ferry etc

more areas should be assigned business, residential and industrial districts, that way people are not struglling with coca-cola trucks on their way to school or banks operating in residential areas who usually don't have (adequate)parking space for their staff and customers

Introduce city centre charges like N1000 to drive through a particular area where there are sufficient alternative or even different routes and if you are the only one in a car or minivan you should be charged N2000 - underutilisation of capacity between 8am-11am and 4pm-7pm

commercial building should be forced to build parking blocks to accommodate 1/4 of their office or shopfloors

and they should stop allocating land like there's no tomorrow the houses should be built like those in London- shoesize!!!

and pavements/walkways/sidewalks seems many of the contruction companies don't know what this is, it's not exactly expensive to include this in their proposals!!

This sure makes sense!

M.O.T should b real stiff wit rickety & non road worthy vehicles.
Introducing harsh penalties for offenders.
Make F.G vex develop anoda state.
& shuld go legislative about dis v.i/lekki issue.
Making it difficult 4 companies 2 own offices in there areas.
Wetin do badagry

give El- rufai de job now now Lagos go clean like Abuja

This is a welcome topic.
Imagin that I left my office by 6pm yesterday, had to come back to wait for traffic to lighten up, finally left by 9.20pm and got home by 2.05am this morning, just because a vehicle broke down just after the third mainland bridge around Ogudu area.

Lagos is the commercial head quarters of Nigeria, therefor, we can't expect it to be less populated but traffic can be less conjested by creating other means of transportation like Metro Systems, Train Systems and other kinds of systems used in really populated countries.

People should also be discouraged from being alone in a car and driving all the way from the main land to the Island. If they can't afford to pick anyone for security reasons, they should drop their cars at home and use BRT which should be better managed and well as more should be provided especially the double decker types.

I think the state governor should first berate his fellow governors especially those with the highest number of indigines in the state or those with little or no qualifications, for not providing conducive environment for their people!!!

There is too much focus on lekki and victoria island region; the government should invest in social housing in new towns
with good transport links whereby people can wont feel they have to struggle too much to get to their place of work or business

In terms of transportation, the government can introduce stringent and higher M.O.T requirements for vehicle owners and even more stringent and more expensive vehicle license with compulsory insurance for transporters within the states, this wa thousands of cabu cabu (rickety cabs) and molues will be forced to quit the road or move to ogun state then introduce alternative- clean conducive buses, metrail, ferry etc

more areas should be assigned business, residential and industrial districts, that way people are not struglling with coca-cola trucks on their way to school or banks operating in residential areas who usually don't have (adequate)parking space for their staff and customers

Introduce city centre charges like N1000 to drive through a particular area where there are sufficient alternative or even different routes and if you are the only one in a car or minivan you should be charged N2000 - underutilisation of capacity between 8am-11am and 4pm-7pm

commercial building should be forced to build parking blocks to accommodate 1/4 of their office or shopfloors

and they should stop allocating land like there's no tomorrow the houses should be built like those in London- shoesize!!!

and pavements/walkways/sidewalks seems many of the contruction companies don't know what this is, it's not exactly expensive to include this in their proposals!!

Oh Boy, seems you live in London. Where are the infrastructures in Nigeria to implement the congestion charge and the likes that you've mentioned in your email?

Spread Government agencies across the state.
Give incentives to companies willing to relocate to the outskirts
Introduce subsidized mass transit
Construct rail/underground network
Introduce congestion charge in island

if we're talking about people then lagos cannot be decongested but talking about traffic, other means of transportation should be explored and the existing ones be maintained. as someone said, the rail system should be upgraded and maintained, also ferry services should be improved on as well.like from apapa to marina now, just two rickety ferries operate and there are always people waiting to board them. let the goverment make available more ferries or make private people come in to manage it and open up more routes like epe to marina, ikorodu to marina and others like that. if there are good alternative means of transportation then the roads will be free of traffic.

speaking of traffic, let everyone that has business in apapa be prepared for traffic as LASG is set to close the apapa-oshodi expressway by next week.
check out
http://www.tribune.com.ng/16102008/news/news1.html
for more details.

gentleone:

if we're talking about people then lagos cannot be decongested but talking about traffic, other means of transportation should be explored and the existing ones be maintained. as someone said, the rail system should be upgraded and maintained, also ferry services should be improved on as well.like from apapa to marina now, just two rickety ferries operate and there are always people waiting to board them. let the goverment make available more ferries or make private people come in to manage it and open up more routes like epe to marina, ikorodu to marina and others like that. if there are good alternative means of transportation then the roads will be free of traffic.

speaking of traffic, let everyone that has business in apapa be prepared for traffic as LASG is set to close the apapa-oshodi expressway by next week.
check out
http://www.tribune.com.ng/16102008/news/news1.html
for more details

very soon people will move back to their respective states, imagine spending 1hr from Victoria Island to Lekki Phase 1,

Sorry this is just a rough draft but everybody should contribute to this thread rather than being an armchair critic.
What the governor should do to depopulate the urban areas and he should do it by installing property taxes to deter people from settling in the city. For example, a $17000 minimum tax on all residents plus any additional percentage depending on your economic class (e.g 17,000 + 28% of income of tax per acre of land you own)would make people flee the city and resettle in the rural areas and the revenue would be used to transform the city to Dubai or Berne and make LASU and LAUTECH the next MIT, or Caltech. Remember that the country with the best educational system always comes out on top.

Before he can do all this he needs to develop the rural areas so that people wouldn't hesitate to live there and the best way to do that is to invest in agriculture and tax the farmers to use the money to develop the rural areas by creating free education and free healthcare (people in the 21st century should not be dying of typhoid or malaria or contracting polio). Free education and free healthcare would definitely attract a lot of people to the countryside and with a sophisticated transportation system particularly railway, would lead to a less clogged up Lagos. A subway system is what the city really needs because of the heavy traffic, so it should charge very high fees for parking permits (20,000 per month) anywhere in the city which would force people to dump there cars at home and ride the train more rather than parking the roads with countless cars including 'molues" and "keke marwa's". The state govt should levy every business a property tax and each business must comply with city ordinances by building a parking lot so that we don't have many cars parked by the roadside causing traffic jams and so that the govt can easily tax them rather than taxing everybody with a car. The city should be subdivided into different districts like business districts (for the skyscapers), school districts, religious districts. We can't have chaos around the city with a mosque in the middle of a market place on Friday causing "go-slow".
He should lead a state led industrialization drive in the rural areas by creating food processing plants and other light industries like textile factories in the rural areas, this would create jobs so that that all those guys who have gone to the city to look for work and ended up becoming agberos and ashewos to make ends meet would now come back home.

Two Missiles.

One A-Bomb.

The fastest way to decongest Lagos is to decongest it.

There are too many people there.

C

Y UNA DEY DULL>>NA BOMB BLAST NOW, just throw am 4 Oshodi, Lagos Island and Yabab.

For example, a $17000 minimum tax on all residents plus any additional percentage depending on your economic class (e.g 17,000 + 28% of income of tax per acre of land you own)would make people flee the city and resettle in the rural areas and the revenue would be used to transform the city to Dubai or Berne and make LASU and LAUTECH the next MIT, or Caltech. Remember that the country with the best educational system always comes out on top.

you dreaming.

They simply steal more money from Government purse to pay for this.


First Thing we need SOLID Primary education for ALL.

i think the Federal government should make sure that it creates opportunities all over the country, and not creating parastatals and making lagos the headquarters, yes, one would say lagos is the commercial capital of nigeria, correct!!! but i must say it is because over the years, the policies of government have been favouring lagos, just recently, as congested lagos is the federal government wants to build a new refinery in this same lagos, what do you expect when its complete, more people, more cars, more tankers, etc, more congestion, what has happened to ogun state, and other states around lagos  if they want to boost supply to lagos, presently all the petrol, diesel, kerosene is imported through Apapa,what happens to other ports in the country like warri, calabar and port harcourt and other inland ports. the government needs to act fast, if not everybody in nigeria (140 million people) will end up in lagos in the next 5-10 years, and the place will just explode because all social vices will be bred in astronomical proprtions like cultism, armed roberry, kidnapping, prostitution, drugs, etc because nobody knows anybody.

Nigeria is big enough for lagos not to be congeted like this, develop our cities, and the middle class will return, if not what we will continue be seeing is the super rich with 10 cars each and Castles in VI, Lekki, Ikoyi etc and the super poor dragging molue  and living like chickens in ajengule, oshodi, etc, A word is enough for the wise!!!!

MAke life unbearable.
Take away its power (Seaport and Airport) and watch lagos crumble.

This a nice thread.I think the state govt of the other states should develop thier states too.