Use local materials to construct roads- Odewunmi urges government

 

A Professor of Transport and Policy Planning,Samuel Odewunmi, has urged government at all levels to adopt the innovation and use of local materials in the construction and maintenance of roads.

Odewunmi, a lecturer at the Department of Transport Planning and Policy, School of Transport and Logistics made the assertion at the 99th inaugural lecture of Lagos State University (LASU) , on Tuesday in Lagos.

He spoke on the theme, “Walking Our Way Back To The Garden of Eden: Envisioning a Model of the Complete Metamorphosis of the Urban Transportation System Trajectory”.

The lecturer appealed to local government councils to adopt the use of locally made materials and technologies in the maintenance of roads, especially in the repairs of rural roads.

According to him, the use of locally made materials would boost employment in the country.

“These locally produced materials and methods should be deployed across the country.

“Road construction is not a complicated science that we should continue to rely on expensive foreign contractors.

“Locally made materials should be used in the construction or maintenance of minor link roads and rural roads,” Odewunmi advised.

He noted that in the past, the state government sponsored research on converting solid wastes like plastics, polyethylene and sand to road maintenance and construction materials.

“It is agonizing that the state government can not fund the second phase.

“We, therefore call on the state government to take the research to the final phase of field trials,” he said.

The don added that “for transport network to function optimally, there must be intermodal co-ordination and integration within each mode.

“The present disjointed incrementalism approach to transportation development can not help leapfrog our economy,”he said.