Oct 6, 2011 – A ramp bridge, designed to ease traffic congestion on Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, was commissioned on Wednesday by Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State.
The motorists going to Ikoyi will no longer need to get to the intersection of Ozumba Mbadiwe and Adeyemo Alakija as they can now use the ramp, which lands directly on Falomo Bridge.
The N2.5 billion ramp, measuring 115 metres in length, is part of the N50 billion Public Private Partnership agreement between the state government and Lekki Concession Company (LCC).
The bridge, Fashola noted, is an addition to the growing list of first-of-its-kind projects his administration has delivered. He promised that “there would be more of such projects in due course as the efforts to transform Lagos into Africa’s model mega-city continue.”
“This is [part of the] deliverables of the 30-year PPP signed in 2006 [with LCC], pursuant to which the company is already rehabilitating and upgrading approximately 50km of the Eti-Osa Lekki–Epe Expressway and will also construct approximately 20km of the coastal roads,” he said.
“For us, [the traffic problems] represent part of the challenges that a bustling economic centre must deal with. From those challenges lie inherent opportunities for greater economic possibilities for a government that can think.”
The new bridge, according to Opuiyo Oforiokuma, LCC’s Managing Director, “is a post-tensioned continuous deck of approximately 115 metres in length, sited on 5 piers, each resting on 4 piles while the structure rests on a low abutment at the eastern end and links with the existing Falomo Bridge on a cantilevered joint, resulting in zero forces being imposed on the existing Falomo Bridge.”
Governor Fashola commended the Federal Ministry of Works, PHCN, state government agencies and international consultants and advisers such as High-Pont Rendell of the UK, and BKS and Aurecon of South Africa that worked “to deliver this wonderful piece of engineering”.
