Tonami Playman Profile picture
For the love of Data, Transit, and Energy
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Jan 21 16 tweets 6 min read
I noticed LAMATA has updated the Lagos Urban Rail Masterplan. Image If we compare this to the earlier maps from the 2010s,

-they've eliminated the shared track section between the Orange & Purple lines from Redeem to Toll Gate.

- Eliminated the shared section on the Purple & Blue lines from LASU to Okokomaiko. Image
Dec 4, 2024 11 tweets 4 min read
A good update on the status of the Lagos Blue Line Phase 2 construction.

The 14km Blue line extension from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko has 6 stations and is scheduled to be completed in 2026. At the 16:50 mark The LAMATA director stated the completed 27km line would carry 250k to 500k daily riders and at the 17:17 mark, he stated they would have 250k daily riders at the start in 2026.

Nov 30, 2024 11 tweets 3 min read
The actual active section of the Lagos Red line is 24.5km with 8 stations, so a 3.5km station spacing. For a commuter line, that is an actually good spacing.

What's not clearly understood is the different hierarchies of metro lines. Image In Lagos, the Red line & Blue line are in different categories, despite both of them just being referred to as metro by @Lamataonline

The Red line is a longer range suburban line which usually have ~4km station spacing.

The Blue line is an urban line which usually have ~1km
Nov 12, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read
This concession plan is DOA. The Lagos Blue only carries 4,500 passengers per day, a number that is less than most regular bus services.

It would need significant upfront investment in the procurement of new trains. Yet you want a for-profit private entity to run it. 49 of the 127 CTA bus lines in Chicago carry more passengers than the Lagos blue line's 4,500 daily average, and those are not BRT.

rtams.org/ridership/cta/…Image
Oct 4, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read
This false rhetoric has been playing for so long that Gemini AI presents it as fact.

Site - Atlantic Dist - Channel draft

Lekki Port - 0NM - 16m
Onne - 19NM - 12m
Apapa - 19NM - 12m
Obeaku - 27Nm - 4-6m
Port Harcourt Port - 31NM - 10m
Calabar Port - 34NM - 6m Image How can anyone look at a map and make such a blatantly false conclusion?

This situation also highlights the problems with AI search. If people write enough rubbish online that ends up being used to train the LLM, it's going to be spewing out rubbish too.

Sep 8, 2024 10 tweets 3 min read
The entire 68km Lagos Green line is planned to have only 10 stations according to the official masterplan.

If they stick to the plan and don't add more stations, this will create a very unusable line.

Thanks to @chriskost for bringing this to my attention.
Image Here I compare the station spacing to 2 express metro systems.

Lagos Green Line - 68km - 10 Stns - 7.5km spacing
BART Green Line - 70km - 20 Stns - 3.7km spacing
Guangzhou Line 21 - 61.5km - 21 Stns - 3km spacing

Sep 7, 2024 5 tweets 2 min read
The Onne Oil & Gas Free Zone was established in 1996. The Rivers State govt should have pushed to expand the zone to include manufacturing, There're readily available gas pipelines that can serve power plants to guarantee 24/7 electricity for the zone.
Image Link

intelservices.com/oil-gas-free-z…
Sep 6, 2024 18 tweets 7 min read
Based on the official low res LAMATA map ( I used to have a link to the high res version, but it no longer works), this is my best guess of what the Lagos green line alignment could look like.

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From Marina, it would follow Ahmadu Bello Way, then turn unto Adeola Odeku St.

There's ample room to build the line elevated through this section. They would have to decide between acquiring land from Bonny cam or demolishing the flyover to accommodate the viaduct. Image
Aug 30, 2024 11 tweets 3 min read
Instead of clamouring for new deep sea ports, the E & SS states should be working together to strengthen the transport links to Onne Port.

This proposed freight rail corridor is 254km long from Onne port to Onitsha with 4 ICDs at Aba, Owerri, & Onitsha. Image This follows the proposed PHC-Enugu railway corridor. 84km of the freight rail corridor would be a mixed double track section shared with Passenger service.

Aug 27, 2024 19 tweets 7 min read
For those who are still wedded to the misguided idea that ports generating economic activity instead of ports going where it already exists, let's take a look at the history of the Lagos port complex.

A🧵 Image In the late 19th century, Lagos, being the site of the first organized modern government in what would become Nigeria, attracted people seeking refuge from the Yoruba civil wars.

This led to a 64% population growth between 1866 & 1870.

sahistory.org.za/sites/default/…
Image
Aug 23, 2024 11 tweets 4 min read
1st off, no $3.5bn loan has been secured for this port.

Second, no financial institution is going to put up that amount of money for a project with such low viability. As @NagosBigBoi highlighted below, the agreement was for a project preparation facility.

The signed agreement was for an Afreximbank Project Preparation Facility (APPF)

Aug 6, 2024 5 tweets 2 min read
This was inevitable. The Kenyan market is too small to support auto manufacturing for domestic consumption. The entire African market is smaller than most countries.

If you're not making cars for export outside Africa like Morocco & SA, you're destined to fail. The entire African car market is less than 2 million units & fragmented. ASEAN does 3.5m. Australia with 1.2m units couldn't support auto manufacturing for domestic consumption. The govt gave up after decades of fruitless subsidies.

Aug 4, 2024 17 tweets 6 min read
For SE Nigeria this is what the rail network should look like. The alignments fit into a national network, but if the states have the will, they can build the sections that run within their state boundaries.
Image Of course I'm not holding my breadth that Nigerian state govts will actually do this, but in the likelihood that they choose to proceed, The corridors highlighted in red run through all the SE state.

The main corridor, PHC-Aba-Owerri-Onitsha-Enugu should be the priority #1. Image
Jul 26, 2024 10 tweets 5 min read
There's a lot of latent demand on the Lagos-Ibadan corridor, but the line is far from having a high number of passengers in its current iteration. The trains might look full and will constantly run into tight booking challenges, but that's expected especially when you only run 2 trains a day in an 8hr window on a double track corridor.

Jul 23, 2024 24 tweets 15 min read
This may not be known by many, but contract manufacturing within the auto industry is as old as the industry itself.

Follow me on this trip down the hallways of automotive history. 🧵
Image The Coachbuilding Era:

At the dawn of the automotive industry, most automotive manufacturers only produced a rolling chassis which the customer purchases & pays a coachbuilder to build the shell over the chassis. Image
Jul 3, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read
The African "new cities" projects never stop. They're like an undying version of cryptobro mania. Statements like "investments beckon" are a dead giveaway that the proponents of these are looking for a quick buck. Every existing African city needs serious infrastructure investment like sewers, water, housing, & good public transit.

All these escapist remote "new cities" are a drain on attention and resources to make existing African cities more livable.
Jun 21, 2024 6 tweets 2 min read
Lagos-Onitsha-Port Harcourt Railway

This is the most critical transport infrastructure to build in Nigeria, but Nigeria is not building it, instead it's focusing on other less productive priorities.
Image At $10-$12m/km for 160km/h operation, it would cost btwn $6.7bn & $8bn for the entire 672km alignment.

Apr 19, 2024 13 tweets 6 min read
This is the Suzhou Dushu Lake Tunnel. 7.37km bridge + tunnel project with a 3.46km in tunnel.

独墅湖隧道/2363324 baike.baidu.com/item/

Image The project cost 2.71 billion Yuan ($374 million) when it opened in 2007. In 2024 dollars, that's $563 million, about $74 million/km.

kaiwind.com/n1791/c311334/…


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Feb 29, 2024 18 tweets 11 min read
Today, February 29 2024, the 24.5km Lagos Red line is being commissioned. It will join the 12km Lagos Blue line, which opened in Sept 2023 as the second rail rapid transit line in the city bringing the total system length to 36.5km.



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The opening section of the LMRT Red line will be 24.5km long serving 9 stations, with 2 maintenance depots. One at Iddo, south of Oyingbo, the Southern terminus, & the other at the Northern terminus in Agbado. Image
Jan 17, 2024 12 tweets 4 min read
A tale of two rapid transit systems

Left - Singapore (5.9m Pop)
System length - 230km
Daily ridership - 3.4 million (2019)
14.8k avg riders/km

Right - Kuala Lumpur (8.9m Pop)
System length - 223km
Daily ridership - 800k (2024)
3.6k avg riders/km
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Despite both systems being of similar length, Singapore's MRT has 4X the ridership of Rapid KL's system.

KL's system is also about to get even longer as the 38km Shah Alam line is scheduled to open this year. Image
Dec 11, 2023 4 tweets 3 min read
What Lagos rail transit network would look like once the Red line joins the Blue line in operations sometime in 2024. Image LAMATA already has plans to build the Red line phase 2 which includes a dedicated bridge across the lagoon & an interchange station at Marina on the opposite side of the elevated ring road from the Blue line Marina station.


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