Port Harcourt Traffic Gridlock

For three days last week I returned to Port Harcourt after a six year absence. I had earlier lived in the city for the 45 months up to October 2005. Rulership had changed hands while the militants had been mostly rested but that old blight of Port Harcourt had, if anything, worsened. Traffic congestion, particularly on the Aba Expressway (Crawlway more like) was definitely no better than I remembered it. Indeed, considering that the days I sallied forth were dry, it was worse despite the hundreds of billions in naira sunk into new roads, bridges, interchanges etc. I had read of the massive effort the current state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, had made on infrastructure and could see where the money was spent albeit not always with the right visual impact.

With all the new roads etc one could have been forgiven for thinking the ‘witches and wizards’ notorious for tying up Lagos roads had made Port Harcourt a second base just to frustrate the efforts of Amaechi. My assessment though suggested that the problem was nothing so esoteric and, praise the Lord, its solution wouldn’t need even more billions, from Bond or Derivation, to resolve.

While Dr Peter Odili ruled the Rivers manor things had been little different congestion wise. In 2003 or thereabouts I had engaged in a discussion on my employer’s online forum that attempted to tease out the root causes of Port Harcourt’s endemic traffic chaos. Things were so bad back then that we sometimes couldn’t get out of the office gate until midnight despite leaving one’s desk a little after 4pm. Such hell was common on days when it rained and the road junctions were abandoned by traffic police to the tender mercies of Nigerians’ uncommon civility. I once came from Lagos to Port Harcourt by road in about 10 hours and then spent six hours between Rumukrushi and Elelenwo! Such experiences weren’t unusual and were ‘evidence of the marginalization of the entire Niger Delta and Port Harcourt in particular by the Nigerian ‘federation’’. In the view of my interlocutors, all Port Harcourt needed to make its traffic ooze was a huge dollop of federal money to build many bridges on dry land same as had been done in Lagos. Once federal concern had been so expressed, the witches and wizards would be banished from PH roads and all would be well with the world.

My view was different and it wasn’t because I am a ‘Lagos Boy’ though my Lagos experience came in handy. I did a quick comparison between Ikorodu Road, a major Lagos artery, and Aba Expressway, not just a major PH artery but its very Aorta. On Ikorodu Rd I could do a U Turn at Jibowu, Anthony, Maryland or Ojota / Ketu while on Aba Expressway, which is definitely not longer than Ikorodu Rd, I had the freedom to cross to the other side of the road within 500 metres of any point at which I joined the road. Virtually every road that joined the Aba Expressway gave drivers the privilege of crossing to the other side of the road. And all these were level crossings moderated by traffic lights and officers, PHCN and weather permitting respectively. About two dozen level crossings on an ‘Expressway’, an Expressway that was so central to traffic circulating in PH. A very bad idea. The four crossings on Ikorodu Rd are all by bridges or underpasses. 

On my last evening in PH during my visit last week I walked from the presidential Hotel to Oil Mill Junction not just for my constitution but to see if anything had changed. I noticed the drainage work going on and the adjoining roads being worked on alongside roads and bridges already delivered. Obviously Amaechi has given the traffic situation some thought and is willing to spend serious money on solving it. However he is not applying the right solutions.

On my stroll I noticed that every interloping level crossing was still there part from the ones for Elechi Amadi and Elelenwo Roads. And from every such intersection the traffic tailed away into the distance. It was obvious to me that the problem with Aba Expressway traffic which routinely resulted in city wide gridlock especially on rainy days emanated almost exclusively from those superfluous crossings but my eight year old argument had won no converts, at least not in the Brick House. By the way, traffic flowed smoothly from the Shell junction to Oil Mill and beyond, and back from there to the Shell junction again: where the intersections had been closed there were no further traffic challenges. The apparently intractable Oil Mill Junction nightmare had evaporated into thin air with the interchange. The government of Rivers State needs to close off EVERY level crossing on Aba Expressway. The length of the road does not require more than three proper crossings of the standard of the Oil Mill Junction interchange. What we have at Rumuola will definitely not do. A three lane expressway cannot be choked into basically one lane. Redo Rumuola into a proper interchange (a few houses will have to give way but Amaechi luckily isn’t shy about knocking down properties for public good) and create another interchange at the other end of the road. Thereafter, with the level crossings closed off with permanent barriers, everybody will need to drive at most a few kilometers through smooth flowing traffic to switch to the other side of the road. With the space I saw available on both sides, the road could even be turned to 10 lanes with two service lanes on either side while the central six lanes are reserved for high speed driving.

Don’t we ever have traffic choked on Ikorodu Rd? It happens fairly often but can always be traced to buses dropping passengers on the road, pedestrians playing Russian Roulette by crossing the road without using foot bridges and bad patches on the road. Aba Expressway has all these other issues but scored an own goal by sabotaging its very essence in the design. That road must be redesigned before it chokes PH to death.

Abraham Abiodun Idowu

BRODA THANKS FOR THE ANALYSIS, BUT HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO TREK OR WALK FROM HOTEL PRESIDENTIAL TO OIL MILL JUNCTION WHICH IS MORE THAN 45 MINUTES AWAY? YOU BE SOLDIER?

Sure did but a bit more than 45 minutes by my watch. Combining two passions: walking and thinking up ways to fix Naija.

Ricky_Ross:

BRODA THANKS FOR THE ANALYSIS, BUT HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO TREK OR WALK FROM HOTEL PRESIDENTIAL TO OIL MILL JUNCTION WHICH IS MORE THAN 45 MINUTES AWAY? YOU BE SOLDIER?

bros me i tire for some people lie o: hotel presidential to oil mill junction no be beans o and na for evening he say he walk am.

bros me i tire for some people lie o: hotel presidential to oil mill junction no be beans o and na for evening he say he walk am.

So what will you say about Pleasure b/s to Ile Zik b/s along Abeokuta Expressway (18km round trip) or Dzorwulu to Trade Fair Complex in Accra (21km round trip)? The latter I did with my wife. Walking is my passion as I said. Oyinbos do what they call trekking / rambling for many times those distances. Do not be so quick to insinuate falsehood just because you are happier to jump onto a kamikaze okada instead of exercising your God given legs.  Happy to meet up with you in Lagos and walk from Idumota to Mushin from 5pm if you are still in doubt.

biodunid:


So what will you say about Pleasure b/s to Ile Zik b/s along Abeokuta Expressway (18km round trip) or Dzorwulu to Trade Fair Complex in Accra (21km round trip)? The latter I did with my wife. Walking is my passion as I said. Oyinbos do what they call trekking / rambling for many times those distances. Do not be so quick to insinuate falsehood just because you are happier to jump onto a kamikaze okada instead of exercising your God given legs.  Happy to meet up with you in Lagos and walk from Idumota to Mushin from 5pm if you are still in doubt.

This man is something else? From Dzorwulu to Trade Fair Complex in Accra What else Which means you fit trek from Nigeria to Zambia? Is this your passion or you are just too stingy to use the taxis? I love trekking anyway but its usually less than 10 minutes, 3 times per week and sometimes i go up to 1 month without trekking when am too busy and traveling a lot.

Abeg slow down from over trekking b4 dem buses knock you down. Your wife must be very strong to do all these trekking with you. Are you both extremely fat people that are trying to BURN SOME FAT? Know I understand,

I love trekking anyway but its usually less than 10 minutes, 3 times per week and sometimes i go up to 1 month without trekking when am too busy and traveling a lot.

10 minutes a day doesn't cut it. 30 minutes, last I looked, is the daily quota prescribed for moderate cardiovascular fitness. Since I don't always get the time to achieve this daily I tend to do catch up which sometimes means as much as 180 minutes on the road. Need 80 minutes at least (at 10 minutes per km) to work up a decent sweat. Yes okadas and the like are the greatest threats but have survived them so far, thank God. Anyways we can't all relax with Gulder in hand and pepper soup at elbow

BMI is well below 25 and BP below 120/70 at age 47 so don't think I am desperately trying to correct a health deficit. But really walking and thinking go very well together for me. Ever noticed how all those prophets and avatars were itinerant ? There must be something about being on the hoof and having brainwaves.