Bothered about the seemingly intractable traffic gridlock that has remained a hallmark of port access roads, stakeholders in the transport sector have enjoined the federal government and littoral state governments, especially Lagos, to adopt intermodal transportation systems in order to move export and import goods in and out of the ports in Lagos and other parts of the country.
This is coming as barges are seldom used through the waterways to evacuate containers to inland container depots and riverine ports, while management of the Nigerian Railway Corporation has since suspended long-distance passenger and freight train service from Lagos to Kano, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt due to vandalism of tracks and insecurity, especially in the northern part of the country.
They have, therefore, suggested that, in the interim, container goods should be evacuated through the narrow and standard gauge railway lines to designated inland container depots (ICDs) within Lagos and Ibadan, just as dedicated bus, truck and petrol tanker lanes should be constructed along the port access roads linking Apapa, Tin-Can Island, Warri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and other ports.
An automobile engineer, Ajare Dickson, in his remarks, suggested that the Oshodi-Apapa port access road should be redesigned to have six lanes on both sides of the road, adding that two lanes on each side should be dedicated to container-bearing trucks, two for petrol tankers and one each for buses and private cars, respective!y.
He stated that, on completion, the relevant authorities should be mandated to ensure all categories of vehicles comply with lane discipline while driving in and out of the Apapa or Tin-Can Island port to offload empty containers, offload imported goods and evacuate export goods.
In the same vein, Dickson said government agencies like the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency and Federal Road Safety Corps should be designated to regulate movement of petrol tanker drivers in and out of the tank farms at Apapa and Tin-Can Island port environs.
Another respondent, Mr. Augustine Okwashaka, a geological surveyor, posited that, apart from creating dedicated bus and truck lanes linking the Apapa port, the federal government should resuscitated long-distance movement of goods and passengers from Lagos to other parts of the country and back.
He posited that, if the railway were functional, the preference for trucks in evacuating containers in and out of the port would not have been the case.
He pointed out that the railway should be used to convey bulky goods in and out of the ports to private inland container deports within Lagos and environs where such consignment could be offloaded and transferred by road to other parts of the country, instead of every importer coming to Lagos to carry out import/export business.
Mr. Allen Kwesi, a reguker traveller and trader at Agbado Oja, noted that, if there was a functional water transportation system, there would be no need for an importer to travel all the way from the East to Lagos just to clear a container that could be transferred to Warri or Calabar.
He also suggested that there should be railway lines and dedicated truck, bus and petrol tanker lanes linking all the port access roads in the country, adding that security should also be provided in order to protect crew and containers conveyed by all the three modes of transport.
Kwesi stated further that the government should enter dialogue with tank farm owners located by the port access road along the Oshodi-Apapa expressway with a view to relocating their tank farms to Ogun State where there is a waterway and enough road space for movement and parking of trucks.
He averred that, considering the fact that railways have been removed from the exclusive to the concurrent list, the new blue line of the Lagos State government should be extended to Tin-Can Island port for evacuation of imported goods out of the port.
