Blue Line Rail will begin commercial operations.
Blue Line Rail will begin commercial operations. The governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwoolu has announced through is official Twitter Handle that the Blue Line Rail will begin commercial operations Monday September 4, 2023 from Marina to Mile 2. While using the Twitter hashtag, #LagosOnTrack, the governor said that the he would be at the Marina station 9 A.M as the first passenger of the Rail.
According to the Governor Sanwoolu, the project will make daily commute easier for a lot of our residents. He said, From Tuesday, partial passenger operations will begin from 6:30-10am and afternoon peak from 4-9:30pm. It would start with 12 trips for 2 weeks, ramping up to 76 trips/day and passenger would be able to board the train using the Lagos Cowry Card.
This is the people’s project and everyone will enjoy its world-class services. The Blue Line Rail is one of the rail projects designed to make Lagos a fully interconnected city and it will transform our city’s transport system. He stated further.
While encouraging Lagosians to use the service, he said “ There are over 300 CCTV cameras across the entire rail with over 30 cameras monitoring the tracks alone, with command and control centers available in all stations along the track. Lagos, this is your project. Take ownership and treat it with decency as you would treat anything that belongs to you. Any altercation or disturbance on the train will NOT be tolerated. It goes without saying that vandalism also will NOT be tolerated. We remain committed to transforming every area of our great state.”
It is important to remember that in April 2008, the Lagos State Government gave its approval for the allocation of 70 billion naira towards the construction of the Okokomaiko-Iddo-Marina Line.
The projected timeline for completion was set for 2011. Nevertheless, the project encountered numerous setbacks as a result of insufficient financial resources. The initial scheduled date of commencement was rescheduled multiple times, first to June 2013, then to December 2016, and subsequently to 2017.