LASTMA threatens event centres with stiff sanctions over cars parked on roads 

The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) has said event centres, wine bars, lounges and places of worship where guests park their vehicles blocking free flow of traffic because of inadequate parking spaces would attract stiff penalties.
   
The General Manager, LASTMA, Mr. Olajide Oduyoye, said his agency has stepped up efforts at ensuring sanity on Lagos roads by continuing to enforce the traffic law in order to achieve seamless vehicular and human movement across the State during the yuletide season and beyond.

This is coming on the heels of a horrendous gridlock that held the Lekki-Ajah corridor impassable for many hours last Saturday, which left road users stranded and rooted to one spot for several hours. It was dubbed “the traffic from hell.”

The entire stretch of the Lekki-Ajah expressway and most adjoining routes in Victoria Island and Ikoyi, were on lock-down for most of the day and well past midnight; as commuters couldn’t move from point A to B on the island. Most stranded motorists, who got to the Lekki corridor at 12noon, didn’t get to their destination until around 1:00a.m. on Sunday, December 15 due to several year-end social events that held along the corridor.

Oduyoye said in other to curb the menace of gridlock in the state, event centre operators and private property owners are henceforth obliged to notify the management of LASTMA for adequate arrangement on traffic management and parking of visitors’ vehicles as directed by the Commissioner, Lagos State Ministry of Transportation, Dr. Frederick Oladehinde.

Oduyoye further averred that, this development is as a result of the traffic congestion experienced on December 14, on the Lekki-Epe Expressway caused by motorists who could not secure parking space at the venues of their social gathering, adding that parking of vehicles on the roadside by guests would no longer be condoned.
 
The LASTMA General Manager hereby informs the general public that the agency is available to advise event centres, wine bars, lounges and places of worship without adequate parking spaces off the road, on what to do, rather than allowing visitors block roads, as this will attract stiff penalties.He also said LASTMA is fully geared towards decongesting known gridlock areas like Apapa, Mile 12, Mile 2, Yaba, Iganmu and other places during the yuletide period.