Transportation is a dominant structural element of the capital city plan, all the relevant categories of transportation services are proposed in the transportation plan to ensure viable and efficient national capital for Nigeria. A suitable corridor for the location of rail alignment, in the event that rail service to the FCC is found to be feasible in the future has been proposed. Human imperfections aside, the system as planned is very adequate to alleviate any futurechaotic urban transportation problem that is anticipatedin the city.
The specific objectives of the City Transportation System are: Maximize public transportation mobility for those residents who do not own cars; Maximize the utilization of public transportation for those residents who do have cars; Maximize traffic movements passing through the various development sectors; provide multiple highway paths between development sectors thereby avoiding network bottlenecks; And achieve maximum self-containment within the outlying sectors.
The traffic network in the City consist of Outer Expressways, Inner Expressways, Ring Roads, Parkways, Transitways, Civil Spine Roads, Arterial Roads, Collectors and service roads. Of all these categories, only the Transitways are yet to be implemented, but the proposed corridors were provided and being fervently guarded and protected.
The content of the Transitways include the National Railway (NR) and Commuter Rail (CR), and where the NR and CR will be on the same track. Until the actual implementation commence, it will seem as if the reserved corridors were vacant lands.
Over the years, these corridors were bedeviled by barrages of encroachments. If not for the ever vigilance of Development Control and Park and Recreations Departments of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), the entire areas reserved for the future developments of Road and Rail would have since disappeared. Unfortunately, that protection is now a thing of the past, not because these agencies lack the capability and capacity for their enforcement functions.
At the beginning of every regime, whoever is appointed the FCT Minister makes a vow to defend the Abuja Master Plan. What is required for the Ministersto keep to their promises is simply to manage the land within the territory earmarked for the Federal Capital according to the recommendations of the Abuja Master plan. However, the level of compliance of the various Ministers to what they promised are not the same.
According to the Master plan, in the early phases of the Federal Capital development, the transit spine will operate as a busway, and at later stages, might incorporate a higher capacity transit mode, such as rail rapid transit, and light rail transit. From a functional point of view, rapid transit could provide a higher capacity and operating speed than light-rail transit, but at the expense of higher implementation cost and the need for a higher exclusivity along the right-of-ways.
Notwithstanding the failure to commence the implementation of the project due to the cost component, as all transportation corridors everywhere in the world, the undergrounds of the flanks are used as service lines for water, electricity, sewer and others, serving the various sectors of the city.
Invariably, although the Transitways are not yet implemented for the public transportation uses they have since been in use as water mains underground service corridors for water supply, and sewer lines for the evacuation of liquid wastes from all the various sectors of the city. Tempering with or the violation of that reserved corridor for any other use would portend serious danger and untold hardship to the residents of the city.
The prevailing circumstances is the ongoing violation of the S12 Transitway along the highbrow Maitama and Wuse II Districts. The underground 800mm diameter water pipeline that supplies water to Maitama, Wuse II, Wuye, Zone 4 and parts of Central Area District were laid decades ago, prior to the commencement of physical developments in many parts of the city.
Massive construction activities along the line broke the pipeline. It resulted to the disruption of water supply to all the districts aforementioned for eighteen days. Obviously, the repairs two days ago that allowsthe continuation of water supply is only temporary. Because the massive development over the main pipeline continue unabated.
We can only deceive ourselves because the overburden structure has the tendency of causing leakage or rupture on the underground pipeline. Thus, the need for access for future maintenance is inevitable. That was why the city plan provided for the underground services to be along such corridors which would not be overburdened by any physical development apart from the earmarked transportation service.
The other solution would have been to divert the pipeline to pass through another area that will be secured. But there is no vacant land around for the diversion because almost all were already developed. Even if an undeveloped land is found it is not possible to obtain such corridor that can continue to a very long stretch for the laying of public utilities.
To be continued.
