By Ayodele Johnson

Just a month since the Lagos Blue Line Rail started, usually clogged freeways no longer see vehicles’ prolonged build-up on some axis, be it off-peak or peak periods. Why this is the case is thanks to the alternative universe for mobility. To be part of this experience means giving 30 minutes of your time, although finding ease during your ride depends on a bunch of factors such as when you are travelling and where to.

By 08:04 a.m. on weekdays, the last morning train departing the Marina Station to Mile 2 would have arrived. Five minutes from the time, the passengers heading to this destination would also have boarded a coach in under five minutes. Off and away they go on a half an hour journey. Prior to the light rail line, such endeavour are potentially two hours-long. Particularly on tightly-fitted roads that struggle to contain the millions of cars shuttling up and down. Now, the rush has been happening at a different scene. It is by evening time at the steel and concrete platform of the station.

Over there, young workers evening time are returning from Lagos Island’s central business district. They are hurrying to catch a one-way exit back to their base along the Mile 2 corridor. Recent social media clips have shown a rowdy crowd lining on the platform. Their wild display has created hiccups sometimes, as well as mental messaging that suggests a ride on the blue line can be tedious. Nevertheless there is a way around this if one masters timeliness.

ALSO READ: Travel around Lagos via the Blue Line Rail

Timing has a big space to fill in this newly imagined railverse. There is nothing like African time here. Certainly no room for slip-ups or running late. If not, you will miss the train. We need to open the hacks to you and show you how the newer Lagos works.

• Checking Schedules Ahead: Getting on the train ride has to be intentional – no dilly-dally will be permitted. Loads of people want to beat the road traffic like you, so they plan ahead to ride on the railcar, which begins as early as 06:58 a.m. based on what the scheduling has been showing. Here is how to offer competition to other intending passengers – it starts with remotely checking the weekly schedule displayed on the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority’s (LAMATA) website, and then booking a trip via the Cowry app, or arriving early enough at a station to be the first one to be onboarded by an officer.

• Joining Early Rides: How to be part of the early rides is to arrive on time of course. A journey commencing by 07:03 a.m., for instance, needs you to be on the ground 20 minutes before. And it is not just the arrival that you should worry about, getting yourself ready for payment is a top priority. The multimodal transportation system in Lagos supports cashless transactions across all services. Before the blue line, getting on the BRT or a ferry demands that you own a Cowry card tap-to-pay contactless solution although you must visit a ticketing office to buy a value in cash. Once you have this box checked, then you are ready to ride the train.

• Off-peak Hours: Beyond arriving early enough at the train station and getting your payment card ready is the decision concerning where you are travelling from. This determines the level of crowdedness on the train. The total length of the Lagos Blue Line Rail is 27 kilometres, but only 13 kilometres have been completed. This covers Marina to Mile 2 and back for now. Oftentimes in the morning, journeying from Marina will give the feeling that you are alone on a football pitch if not for tiny bits of passengers that are scattered around vacuums of seats. From the Marina route, the demand exiting the station is low in the early hours unlike when the streamliner needs to head back from its latest destination down in Mile 2. The reverse is the case come evening 6 O’ Clock-ish when the total burden now shifts to temporarily idle Marina.

Since 4 September when the Blue Line launched, there have been, according to Governor Babajide Sanwoolu, “over 350 trips, with zero incident”, and there has been room to move up to “75,000 people from their homes, to their schools, workplaces, businesses and back home to their families and loved ones”. All these individuals have been transported. Everything looks good.

Quite encouraging figures it would seem – it is the reason why up to 3.8 million Cowry cards have been received so far by the public, so what is next? The Red Line is what is next.

Obviously, the plan is to spread through the whole of Lagos with the train rides. Already, one coastal area has been captured with the blue line, so the subsequent venue will be Oyingbo to Agbado, and close to the Ogun State border. That is the vision of the Red Line, a 37 Kilometer North South rail route which is now in the works and soon to be completed.

The Red Line when commissioned will travel from Agbado to Marina but stopping at 13 stations such as Agbado, Iju, Agege, Ikeja, MMIA International, MMIA Domestic, Oshodi, Mushin, Yaba, Ebute meta, Iddo, Ebute Ero and Marina.

Not every worker in Lagos lives in the megacity, so this service will be for them. Now that there has been a dramatic decrease in the sales price of cement, house rent charges might soon become slightly affordable. What should come after such a milestone is the direct travel between communities.