Lagos’ Impossible Bus Rapid Transit

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems are road-based mass transit projects featuring segregated lanes which have become popular best practices in the 2000s. These projects are infused with a socio-technical imaginary of modernity, translating into the ambition of sanitized transport systems free from paratransit. Implemented in the early 2000s, the Lagos BRT is a symbol of urban reform, an emblem of institutional change and the first stone of an envisioned modern, integrated, transport system. However, pre-existing regulation modes in the transport industry challenge the socio-technical imaginaries conveyed by the BRT. This study of BRT’s operations in the crisis-prone years from 2020 to 2022 reveals that BRT is less resilient than paratransit in the absence of operational subsidies. Further, the modernistic project even ends up functioning similarly to paratransit. The paper also addresses the ambiguity of Lagos State’s positioning as its close ties to the paratransit operators’ union jeopardizes the expansion of its regulated transport system.