Our dear city, Lagos, is proudly the most populous city in Africa. Sits beautifully on an elevation of 41m, the financial centre for the continent and houses the busiest sea ports in the continent too. So busy a city, that people hardly sleep a wink.
We love our recreations too. And one thing we also all love is our cars!
The love for our automobiles knows no bounds. We literally, sometimes sleep in them, all thanks to traffic. Lagos, being filled with these beauties in four wheels and drivers, either too reluctant to take their cars off theirs sights, mostly for security reasons, or unwilling to find car parks, often end up with the four wheeled beauties on the walkway.
Yes, the walkway. Many a times, it’s a wonder how pedestrians tend to maneuver their way through the city.
Cars parked tail to tail in long rows, causing both automobile and human traffic, in streets and major roads.
Car parks aren’t obsolete, no.
These car park spaces are located at strategic places around the city, with 0 to 20 percent of drivers utilizing their features in maximum. Hence, leaving the streets and roads filled with parked vehicles.
This menace springs it’s root from buildings being erected without consideration for parking lots, residential areas being built without a second thought at residents’ parking spaces, schools being built everywhere, without a space for parents’ cars during drop and pick up time.
Should we talk about office complexes without a parking lot for their employees? Over time, roads and walkways are now being doubled as car parks.
Roads now being narrowed as a result of walkway parking, making it difficult for commuters and pedestrians to safely go about their daily duties. A study by the Lagos State Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, LAMATA shows that major causes of traffic jam is walkway or road side parking.
The use of organised car parking system is an untapped business that could solve the situation of grid lock traffic jam and incessant walkway parking in Lagos.
If this system is properly inculcated in the society, it will not only take away the annoying traffic jam, but would go a long way in improving the conditions of living.