) Pedestrian Infrastructure and its Safety Awareness Level in Metropolitan Lagos: The Case of Ojota Footbridge

Abstract

Pedestrians are highly diverse group and the most vulnerable road users. The group include children, older people, teenagers, joggers, the disabled, mobility impaired, and people using wheeled toys or recreational devices such as skateboards, roller blades and foot scooters. Everyone is a pedestrian at some stage in their journey so strong and constant consideration must be given to them by other road users. Pedestrians account for the highest proportion of road fatalities in nearly all African countries, ranging between 31% in Zimbabwe and 51% in Ethiopia. In Lagos, between 2006 and 2014, there were 1,579 fatalities on the highways which include pedestrians not using overhead bridges. Even with this, previous studies from Nigeria have emphasised passengers and drivers on awareness. Primary sources of data were relied on to examine the extent of the awareness level of pedestrians towards pedestrian infrastructure. 216 pedestrians were randomly selected from the study area using Glen’s formula. The paper calls appropriate authorities to construct more pedestrian friendly roads, enlightening the populace on the importance of pedestrian infrastructure y increasing the awareness level as well as enforcing the usage.