A LIFE WELL LIVED: Pavement Culture
Paaaaahnnnn, paaaaahhhnnnnnnn! The sound of the horn as the irate driver responds to the melee of human bodies, okadas and keke marwas all jostling for space by the roadside and not giving him quick leeway to blast off on another of the never ending journeys Lagos roads entertain. Entertainment that also regularly features humans dancing with vehicular traffic just trying to just get from one place to another, an all too common sight on most Lagos roads.
It is time to stop being annoyed with people who seem to risk their lives crossing roads, sometimes right under pedestrian walkways made for that specific purpose. The reason is simple, you cannot give what you do not have. If you have grown up in an environment where all you know when it comes to human/road interactions is how to avoid being hit by cars when merely walking, this is what you will persist in doing. What’s the real problem then? The answer is that there are barely any pavements in Lagos. In fact about the only place where people seem to walk on pavements consistently in Lagos is in the University of Lagos or on one or two streets in Lekki.
Pavements are one of the most powerful tools for urban and social redesign in cities. If you wish to change Lagos for the better, build real pavements. The function of pavements is to make cities friendlier to pedestrians. Making Lagos more pedestrian friendly would go far in redefining Lagos as a city ready for the challenges of the 21st century. How important are pavements you might ask. A couple of examples…
More than 2,600 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars are embedded in the pavements along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California. It seems nowhere is better for immortalising actors and musicians who have achieved a particular honour than burying memorials to them in pavements where all and sundry can see them. And they come to see. An estimated 10 million visitors go to Hollywood Boulevard annually to stare at the pavement with the typical visitor spending 45 minutes at this location. Imagine the economic impact…
A visit to almost any major city in the world with well developed shopping districts means walking, a lot of walking. London with Oxford Street, Bond Street, Kings Road and many of the high streets; New York with Manhattan; Los Angeles with Rodeo Drive; Paris with the Avenue des Champs-Élysées; Singapore with Orchard Road… You get the idea. The pride of a city is the walking district. It is where the high end retailers set up shop and also the location with the highest economic impact. It is usually not far from the business district and contains some of the best cafes and restaurants. More often than not, it is the heartbeat of the city.
As it is, people living in Lagos struggle to use some form of transportation for short journeys that they could easily walk but nobody feels safe walking on the road. Out of necessity, food places we refer to as eateries sprang up to fill one of the food retail gaps in Lagos. The biggest problem these locations have is the provision of parking as driving is how most people can get to them. That parking prob- lem then escalates into a traffic problem. If these eateries were simply walked into from pavements, problem solved.
Every once in a while, one hears of talk about how Lagos needs to be more tourism friendly. The fact of the matter is that any tourism friendly city is also a walking friendly city. Barcelona and Amsterdam are easy examples to point at. Lagos Island has quite a bit of old Brazilian architecture dotted all over the place along with a few other historically significant buildings but exactly how does one see them? A walk through Lagos Island is an activity only the determined and nimble will carry out. Yet Bahia and other cities with similar architecture preserve and celebrate these buildings and are visited by millions of tourists as they are walking friendly.
If Lagos wishes to attract big name stores and create a high street, then either proper pavements must be created or entire streets can be converted to walking only, with vehicles that need to provide essential services only allowed through. The impact of pavements will immediately change the pace of Lagos with more people walking short distances to get things done. Relationships will benefit as couples and friends will be able to go for bonding walks. People will get healthier from an improved lifestyle. We will suddenly discover that Lagosians like cafes and new businesses will take off with of course positive economic impact. When pavements are built around areas of interest, tourism revenues will become part of the Lagos economic purse. Greater thought will be given to the placement and design of buildings and services in a paved Lagos due to changed access requirements. The job of policing Lagos will get easier. Lagos definitely needs a pavement culture. However, unlike Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam, motorcyclists must be kept of these pavements so as not to compete with the pedestrians.
Pavements are one of the most powerful tools for urban and social redesign in cities. If you wish to change Lagos for the better, build real pavements. The function of pavements is to make cities friendlier to pedestrians. Making Lagos more pedestrian friendly would go far in redefining Lagos as a city ready for the challenges of the 21st century.
Babatunde Olaoluwa Jeje believes in filling each moment with the very best experiences possible. Writing from Lagos, Babatunde is an entrepreneur, a foodie, a lover of great music, and a practitioner of sprezzatura. Babatunde will be writing about a Life Well Lived.