Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has stated that the tickets of the intra-city trains which are expected to start operations by the last quarter of 2022 won’t be more than N250 per trip.
The governor made this known on Friday while featuring on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme.
Sanwo-Olu said the state newly acquired Talgo Intra-City Ten Coach metropolitan trains for the Lagos Red Line Metro project in line with the intermodal transport plan of the state.
According to him, once completed, the 37-kilometer Red Line will run through eight stops and transport passengers from Agbado to Oyingbo.
The governor stated that his government is accelerating the building of ancillary infrastructure such as train stations in order to begin intra-city train operations by the end of 2022.
He estimated that completing the Red and Blue Lines would cost the state up to N150 billion, but that the expenditure would be worthwhile for the movement of over 22 million Lagos residents.
The intra-city trains, according to Sanwo-Olu, will help to relieve traffic congestion on the roads and will be affordable to Lagos residents.
When asked to give a price range, he said, “N200, N250, it (train ticket) probably won’t be more than that. The fare structure will be (determined by) where you are joining and taking off but typically it won’t be more than what you are running on your regular BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) today.
“For it to be accessible, affordability is really critical for people to want to make it a better option. You can say it is quicker, instead of you staying one hour on the road, it is going to take you 20 minutes.
“So, affordability is very critical. It is certainly not going to be in thousands, like using N5,000 on. A train journey, it is nothing close that, it is still going to be in the regular N200, that is what we are looking at.”
Leave a Reply