Solving Nigeria's traffic woes

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This thought-experiment is focused on solving the traffic congestion problem in metropolitan areas like Lagos and Abuja. These are just a few solutions based on some light research. You’re welcome to add yours or constructively criticise the ones listed.

High property tax for private vehicles
This solution involves imposing a less than reasonable property tax on privately owned vehicles. This is in hopes that less people will use their cars which will result in less traffic.

What it takes:
-Political will: All arms and tiers of government must be willing to make it happen.
-Provision of alternatives: There would be need for better, cleaner and more comfortable buses, tricycles for people who have sacrificed the comfort of their vehicles.

Opportunities:
-Ride sharing apps: Such apps stand to benefit from such a policy as people who want to use their cars at all costs will look for ways to cover the property tax.
-Shuttle services: Bus shuttle services that uberize the normal yellow bus option will appeal to vehicle owners who don’t want to pay the tax but want something better than public transport.

Issues:
-Less wealthy vehicle owners will more than likely cry out and see this as a policy that further oppresses them.
-Nigerians can be very stubborn and will want to occupy the streets. Even the ones without vehicles.

Road space rationing (also known as alternate-day travel, driving restriction, no-drive days)
This involves introducing a scheme that restricts the traffic in an area based on the last digit of the vehicle’s plate number. The most recent of such a scheme was the odd-even rule in New Delhi, India which was trialed for 15 days in January. The rule basically meant that vehicles with an odd plate no. can only ply the roads on an odd date (From 8:00am to 8:00pm) and same for even plates.

What it takes:
-Same as above

Opportunities:
-Same as above
-Ride alternating app: Similar to ride sharing but tailored towards car owners with similar routes to work. This basically helps you find a fellow car owner with a car you’re okay riding in, matching preferences and similar work routes.

Issues:
-Same as above
-People with more than one car (Not too many though)
-People acquiring extra plates (This can be prevented with credible information management)

Introducing Cycling lanes
Cycling lanes can also be introduced as an alternative to cars and buses. For individual who don’t live tens of kilometres from work, they can take up cycling as a way to get to work and also stay healthy.

What it takes:
-Some serious neo-political will. And small craze :joy:
-Implementing one of the above solutions first. People need some push to adopt cycling
-Incentives: If a property tax is in place, some of the revenue from that can be used to incentivize cycling like free service centres or bicycle subsidies. Large companies can also offer employee rewards to those that cycle to work.
-In Nigeria where the scorching sun can be life threatening, there might be need for an innovative low-cost canopy to cover bike lanes. Something like floating canopies or a special kind of tree.

Opportunities:
-Bike rental services: Business can offer bike rentals to individuals who would rather not own Bicycles.
-Bike sharing: Such schemes exist in many cities today and some are sponsored by corporate organisations like banks that brand the Bicycles and gain exposure.

Issues:
-Well, if a bike sharing scheme is introduced, Nigeria’s cannot be trusted not to completely destroy the infrastructure faster than a megaton bomb.
-Theft: When people start buying really dope $1,000 bikes, Theft can become an issue.

Smart-routing
This is very next-gen and is many years away. It basically involves a real-time analysis of all road traffic and providing each vehicle specific/personalised routes to a given location such that traffic is evenly and smartly distributed among all roads in the most time efficient way possible to all vehicles using these roads.

What it takes:
-A team of geniuses
-Political will of course
-An affordable hardware device to provide the route guidance.

Opportunities:
-Whoever builds this tech will definitely be in for a lot of money. Or not, might as well be open source.

Issues:
-Selfish mindedness of road users: When they’re guided away from a certain route, they might still decide to take that very route with the notion that everyone else would have abandoned that route and it will be free.
-Poor road network: Poorly planned cities like Lagos don’t have enough alternative routes and would present a challenge for such a solution.

Reducing the road capacity
Now this definitely sounds counterproductive and won’t work in all situations. The effect of this on traffic is based on Braess’s paradox which states that states that " adding extra capacity to a network when the moving entities selfishly choose their route, can in some cases reduce overall performance. " In essence, reducing the capacity can result in the opposite.

You can read more about such here.

What it takes:
-Very strong political suicidal tendencies :joy:
-An OS upgrade of residents’ brains or large scale hypnosis
OK for real:
-It also requires providing alternatives or as the case maybe, improving the alternatives.

Opportunities:
-For countries that have repurposed their roads into parks and recreational areas, it creates employment and an opportunity for small businesses.
-Shuttle services and ridesharing apps

Issues:
-If there aren’t any suitable alternatives, it just won’t work.
-Underdevelopment: In cities that are lacking a lot in infrastructure, repurposing a freeway into a park might not be the best thing to do.

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Not sure traffic congestion requires a lot of tech to solve.

Trains, water transport, urban planning maybe?

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It certainly doesn’t “require” it.

Trains will definitely go a long way. As for water transport, I’m not convinced it can ever do much. It is just not a very fluid option, ironically.

Urban planning will work best in New cities but even then, many of the world’s most congested cities were well planned. Vehicular traffic just blew up in their faces.

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No hope for lagos traffic in the next 20 years unless it shifts its main business district out of the island. Lagos planners should be looking to develop a new downtown area like near the ogun border so that traffic is symmetrical.

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I think if water transport was a reliable option, many people will consider it. (I see what you did with fluid)

Urban planning can mean many things: from newer bus stops to alternative routes to affordable housing to eradicating the traffic operators who stop cars at roundabouts.

And I do not think vehicular traffic blew up in our faces. Lagos, for example, is dotted with nice roundabouts and flyovers, I like to think they were built to accommodate the increase in traffic at the time. But everyone (then) probably thought the problem was solved forever.

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I agree that there’s no hope for Lagos traffic but I think there’s more than one “unless”.

Some of the options I listed are very possible and will definitely have a noticeable effect if well executed.

As for a downtown near Ogun border. Is there still a border ? That downtown will be inside Ogun itself. But that might not fix the problem either. The population keeps increasing and by the time that downtown is developed, there’ll be enough people to populate it during working hours whilst the old Lagos traffic situation remains unchanged.

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I don’t know Lagos waterways well or at all, but it’s hard to see how 2,000 ferries will just be darting across the Lagoon like speed boats.

What you’ve mentioned regarding urban planning can’t do much on its own. There are more private cars than buses, alternative routes can be affected by braess’ paradox. As for affordable housing, if the govt can somehow how build super affordable skyscrapers closer to the CBD, less people will have to travel too long distances to work.

And your last sentence clearly indicates that it DID in fact blow up in our faces.

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[quote=“Yinka, post:6, topic:4484”]
agree that there’s no hope for Lagos traffic but I think there’s more than one “unless”.

Some of the options I listed are very possible and will definitely have a noticeable effect if well executed.[/quote]

I seriously doubt it. I dont know if you have been to Cairo but despite being centuries older than Lagos it is better planned, they have the most sophisticated subway system in Africa and loads and loads of highways yet their city remains choked with traffic.

For Egypt which is 90% desert there are few alternatives to Cairo. For Nigeria, there are lots of alternatives to Lagos. Already a lot of port activity has moved to Cotonou, a lot of manufacturing has moved to Ogun state. With GE basing out of Calabar I expect there to be an exodus of oil and gas companies to that city as a base for the industry than insecurity ravaged Port Harcourt.

Lagos to me has to relieve its existing pressure points. The Island is the worst place to locate a business district. If I were Lagos planners I would build a new business district on the opposite side of the state. Instead they are making a bad situation worse with the Lekki Port, Eko Atlantic, and a proposed airport in Lekki with no plans for how to address the paucity of transport infrastructure.

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I’m not sure what you’re doubting here. The idea that there’s more than one way to tackle the issue ?

You said it yourself, Cairo is better planned and still they’re facing traffic woes. I don’t think the desert is a problem, Dubai sprung out of the desert. I mean if you can build an artificial island a desert isn’t a big obstacle.

You talk like Lagos state government can just wake up one morning and 3D print a new business district. The Island isn’t even that densely populated because there aren’t so many high rise apartments compared to other cities. But building a new business district will not solve the problem and I already explained why. Population is growing much faster than infrastructural development.

The problem is quite clear, too many cars on the road. The solution should be geared towards reducing the number of cars on the road not going to build a new business district because as that is being developed, the population keeps increasing and at the end of the day you’ve fixed nothing.

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Cairo is not Dubai. Egypt has a population of 80 million and 90% of the country is desert - i.e. with no water supply. This means that most of the population of Egypt is concentrated in a very small area. Dubai on the other hand is near the Ocean and has to perform engineering gymnastics just to support the 2.5 million people it has such as water desalination and lots of energy to cool all those high-rises.

Lagos problem is its population and the design of the city. All traffic is focused on three major arteries. The link to the island, the link to Apapa and the link to the seme border. Business and trade. To me the idea of putting another port in Lekki and Badagry is sheer madness as is the idea of Eko Atlantic. Talk about making a bad situation worse by concentrating even more traffic in places with limited accessibility and with weak transport infrastructure.

All this does not address the fact that there is no mass transit to or within the Island. The New York subway which moves 5 million riders a day was built when New York was less than 500,000 in population. You cannot build a proper subway system in Lagos without paying through your nose in compensation and engineering costs.

So the long-term solution to me is creating a new business district on the other side of the state which lagos government can do. Lagos State government accounts for 15% of the Lagos economy and employs at least 100,000 workers. It can design a proper business district and jumpstart it by shifting its workers over there. Then other companies may choose to co-locate over there since it would be driving opposite to traffic.

But lets face it this is not going to happen.

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I don’t even know why you brought Cairo into the discussion. You said it is well planned but still has traffic issues. If Cairo needs to expand it will whether it is surrounded by deserts or not.

You still haven’t addressed the issue of population growth. The number of people and vehicles won’t stand still because a new business district is being built. In the time it takes to build one city block there’ll probably already be enough new cars and migrants/employable labour to populate it.

Unless there is an earthquake or major pollution event, I doubt companies would move their base of operations enough for it to make a difference. These companies are growing too (If we can revive our economy) so they just end up having a new office(s) with a new workforce as opposed to moving all or part of their existing offices to the new district.

Now I’m not saying there’s no need for a new business district, there definitely is and it is a part of economic growth. But I’m not convinced it will solve the traffic problem unless it is incredibly fast-paced.

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I brought up Cairo because the point being that even with rail infrastructure Lagos will still be congested. Cairo does not have the luxury of expanding into the desert. Nigerians have the luxury of moving away from lagos and that is exactly what is and will be happening.

About population growth you don’t get my point. Building a new business district will take LESS TIME and money than what is being dumped into Eko Atlantic or the proposed 4th Mainland Bridge or the Blue Line. A 10 storey building doesnt take 5 years to build nor does paving roads. Most importantly it will shift the traffic flow rather than concentrating it further in one direction which is what all the projects in VI, Ikoyi, Lekki, Apapa are doing.

Imagine if the Federal government had not moved its 300,000 workforce to Abuja. Lagos would probably be worse than what it is now. But that is one example of a well taken decision that made the lives of federal civil servants a whole lot easier.

I don’t think Lagos traffic will be solved anytime soon with the kind of thinking I see. So the city will bleed businesses to other places that take planning and transport seriously and value quality of life.

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It is not about luxury but necessity. So are you telling me Cairo hasn’t grown bigger in the last few decades ? Egypt has several kilometres of coast and the Nile river. They don’t have any desert problrms that would stop their cities from groeing. Besides. Cairo is not the only city in Egypt. There over 20 other cities in Egypt. So Nigerians don’t have some special luxury. Anyone in the world can migrate away from a congested city to a less congested one because most countries have both.

The only time added is the time taken to reclaim land. And it is slow because the money isn’t pouring in like it should. You can’t just clone V.I or Ikoyi in 1 year. There is a reason Eko Atlantic is being developed and it is that despite the traffic problems, it is economically viable and that is because the island is a more attractive destination.
A 10 storey building might not take long to build, but that doesn’t mean building a new business district can be done fast enough for it to solve the traffic problem. Tens of thousands of vehicles come in to Lagos every year. The new bridges or the blue line won’t solve the problem either.

The federal government moved several years ago. In a hurry too, which is one of the reasons Abuja is also in a mess now (All thanks to IBB). In any case Lagos would’ve been worse if that didn’t happen.

Expansion isn’t always the best solution to congestion. DECONGESTION is a viable alternative.

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Abuja is a mess? That’s new information.

I am not sure why you are bent on disagreeing with @Nwabu’s points though. The fact that Abuja happened means other business districts can happen outside of the island, but somehow, you keep bringing up time as a deterrent. There is no fast solution, and none of the ones you proposed in your original post is feasible either reasonably, or in the short term.

The road networks in Lagos are shit, and maintenance is a shame. A number of bottleneck prone points can be easily resolved but nobody cares. The officials responsible should be held accountable and made to do exactly what they were elected to do. Proposals like yours make it appear as though they have done their best.

Are you implying that being made to pay for the government’s apparent apathy to developing a proper transportation system and working road networks over the past few years while the enriched individuals get to ply the roads (freed up by bouncing the middle class of it) at will isn’t literally some form of oppression?

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You do know the FG moved to the F.C.T before it was completed right ? Or don’t you wonder why the nation’s capital lacks a central sewage system or city wide underground power lines or just basic tap water ?

I am not entirely disagreeing with his points. I’m simply pointing out the issues like I did with mine. Abuja is it’s own city. It is the nation’s capital and is several hundred kilometres away not some new business district on Lagos’ northern border. Abuja was not developed to save Lagos from congestion. I’m not saying a new business district shouldn’t be built. I’m saying you can’t very well expect it to be enough in fixing the congestion issues when Lagos is growing so rapidly. There is no oversupply of infrastructure. While you’re building a business district thousands of people are migrating to Lagos.

Maybe you should do some research on well developed cities that still have traffic problems. You think the traffic problem would go away by just fixing all the roads ? What happened when they fixed Lekki-Epe ? Did traffic disappear forever ? I’m not implying that the state government has done their best because they haven’t.

I’m simply outlining a major issue with such a proposal. It is just one way to get cars off the road, there are others. You can deduce whatever you want.

These proposals are a more sustainable approach because you can’t honestly believe that you can just keep on expanding road capacity. New Delhi had to try the odd-even rule because the place is so highly polluted. It didn’t solve the pollution problem but it did significantly reduce traffic. So it is in fact feasible.

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I’m not sure how sewage, underground power lines, or basic tap water found their way into this. Are we moving goalposts now?

Why don’t we talk about other state governments getting off their lazy asses and properly developing their capitals and cities within their states so that over time, people will see less need to migrate to Lagos?

I thought the ongoing argument for new business districts was for them to be in Lagos anyway, not just on the island.

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You asked this.[quote=“xolubi, post:14, topic:4484”]
Abuja is a mess?
[/quote] That’s how.

Oh great. Let’s just do that and all the cars on Lagos’ roads will disappear. I have never had any argument against infrastructural development. But Lagos can’t get out of this mess just by building more skyscrapers.

Doesn’t matter anyway unless there is an oversupply of both commercial and residential infrastructure.
That should be “just not on the island” btw. Unless you meant something else.

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I asked that because you said that in your preceding post. Its fine now that I get the context, I think.

Your sarcasm makes it obvious we are on different paths here. If I am correct, your end goal is that we have less cars on the road. Random: If cchub didn’t happen like 4 years ago, the numerous developers who casually stroll to work from their houses, or hop on a 20 naira bus would have been stuck in island traffic today.

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I had to be sarcastic there. Talking about developing other cities so that people won’t feel the need to move to Lagos like all those states are to carry Lagos’ problem on their head. Not saying they shouldn’t develop but every nation has commercial hubs and people will always be drawn towards them. Even if it reduces migration it won’t cause people to abandon Lagos.

OK I really don’t get the cchub thing. There are people on the island who can casually stroll to their workplace too.

You didn’t make any further comment on road space rationing. Maybe you’ve done some research and seen how it could work. But I would like to believe that as a millenial you’d much rather get to work early in a shared vehicle or a bicycle (an eco friendly option), than be stuck in traffic just so that you can show the world you own a car.

The reality is that cars are proving to be quite the inefficient means of transportation. If they get smarter and start talking to themselves, they won’t be this inefficient. But what makes it worse right now is the number of single passenger rides, this puts a lot of pressure on the road infrastructure.

We would do better in the future with both automobile tech and road infrastructure planning. But I’m simply looking at solutions that can help right now.

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No. Because you’ve made up your mind and there was no point dragging it out further. If I had to get to the island from my house on the mainland and I had to choose between my car and the buses, I’ll pick my car.

Gotta love your grandstanding remarks though. Do your research! Maybe you’ve done your research! Bruh!

The cchub thing was to say how Yaba slowly became a place workers in a certain industry started converging rather than joining the island drones. “New cities” isn’t as grand as you’re thinking it. It’s just new places to work outside the island. The entire residents of Ikorodu literally migrate out of the place in the mornings and back at night. Incentives such as lower taxed zones, good roads, etc can help encourage businesses to start setting up shop in new places.

Treat the problem, not the symptom.