By Michael Olatunji
The planned repair work on the Third Mainland Bridge began as planned on schedule at exactly 12am on Saturday.
The bridge was partially shut for what the Federal Ministry of Works called “routine maintenance.”
The Federal Controller of Works, for Lagos State Engr Kayode Popoola who supervised the blockage of the bridge at dawn urged motorists to cooperate with all security operatives and other agencies that had been deployed to control traffic.
Popoola said with the blockage, “we have created diversion on the outward lane while the inward lane is left open for traffic. What this means is that in the morning when you are going to work, right from Oworonsoki you use the same lane and by 12 in the afternoon, you close this lane. We have created diversion to move to the outward bound with the inward sharing the lane with them. We could only appeal to our people to allow the contractor to do the work by not blocking them through being chaotic on the road.
“We promise to deliver this project within six months and open the Third Mainland Bridge for traffic to continue to use the bridge as they were doing before now,” he said.
Popoola said the story of the Third Mainland Bridge repair started in 2018, when we carried out integrity checks on the bridge and we discovered that some of the joints and bearings have gone bad. The contractor placed order for the bad parts and now they had come. They were to start the work when COVID-19 started and gave us delays but we cannot suspend this repairs to avoid calamity.