Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Thursday announced that the first set of 5,000 new buses that would replace ‘danfo’ bus will be unveiled within the next six months.
The governor made this known when students of the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School of Government, United States of America, paid him a courtesy visit at the Lagos House in Ikeja.
He said the 5000 new buses would be the first step by his administration to change the existing transportation system predominantly driven by the yellow buses, popularly known as danfo.
He said: “In the last one year, we have decided that we must integrate rail, road water and air transportation systems in such a way that the system of connectivity is improved upon and I would like to have a direct partnership on how that can actually be actualised.
“Right now, we are cleaning out all the yellow buses you see in the state. As we proceed in the next six months and a span of three years, we are introducing 5,000 new buses of European standard to actually clean up the city, because, if you want to grow the economy of Lagos, transportation is key and then it’s a major infrastructure for tourism itself.
“The question is: How do you move 23 million people on a daily basis from point A to point B with ease and comfort? So, the way the city has been so designed in the last few years, the city has actually concentrated on only one mode of transportation, which is road transportation.
“There are eight million people walking on the streets of Lagos every minute, did we create more points for them? The answer is ‘no’. We have one-fifth of the state on water, are we doing effective water transportation? The answer is ‘no’.
“The rail system is still under construction in such a way that it can move mass number of people from one point to another. That is why we have a whole lot of congestion on the road.
