Lagos govt procures additional rolling stocks for railway Blue and Red Lines

The Lagos State government has procured additional rolling stocks for the Blue and Red Lines rail system in the state.

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, disclosed this at a high-level meeting of Lagos State officials with the President and management of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) at its headquarters in Beijing, China, on Thursday

He said the additional rolling stocks would arrive in Lagos from China before the end of this year.

Sanwo-Olu reiterated his administration’s commitment to the completion of the second phase of the Blue Line rail project.

He said the government was also ready to flag off the commercial operations of the Red Line rail project.

The governor said: “We have made requests for additional rolling stocks for Red Line and Blue Line. That conversation is ongoing.

“We have started making payments and hope that because of our commitment, we will get those rolling stocks before the end of the year.

READ ALSO: Lagos govt clears shanties, obstructions along Red Line routes

”It would improve the journey experience of our people. It would improve citizens’ appreciation of what the government is doing to reduce transportation pressure in a big city like Lagos.

“With the new rolling stocks, we will have a more predictable journey time; the commuters and passengers would be more committed and we will see an improvement in the quality of lives and reduction of traffic gridlocks in the city.”

He told the CCECC team that his government had promised over 22 million residents that it would solve the traffic and transportation challenges they currently faced hence the need for the red line to take off without any further delay.

Sanwo-Olu added: “We are happy that during our tenure, we were able to complete phase one of the Blue Line and not just completing, we started its operation and now we are seeing an increase in the passenger traffic every month. We have also increased the number of trips.

“People expect a lot more from us and that is why we are committed to phase two of the project. The work has started and we are trying to make money available for you (CCECC) to continue to push.

“I have said to people that within our second term, we should complete phase two of the Blue Line.

”For the Red Line, which is even more exciting for us because we started the construction during our administration; we are happy that phase one of it is practically completed and I am happy to invite you when Mr. President, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, would be commissioning the Red Line. We are still hoping to commission it within this February.

“We believe the Red Line will carry more passengers than the Blue Line. The Red Line is longer and it has a lot of other infrastructure. All the bridge components that we are committed to have been completed and commissioned, except the one in Mushin.

“I want you to encourage the Federal Government to also complete their bridge components of the Red Line so that we can have a rail system that would not have any incident of traffic or interaction with vehicles or passengers and we can wall off and ensure it is a very safe rail corridor.

“There are a lot of interactions on the Red Line, so we need to ensure that we operate a rail corridor that is very safe for passengers, citizens, and vehicular movement.”

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