Planning For Sustainability: Transportation and Land Use in Ilorin, Nigeria

Abstract

The increase in the growth of cities and the numbers of people moving to cities in the last two decades have led to sharp increase in transportation demand and development of slums and urban sprawl. Cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Port-Harcourt and Ilorin and other areas in Nigeria are experiencing many pressure on land use such as;, free-space, transportation facilities and a host of urban related problems which urgently deserve planners’ attention. Ilorin is one of the fastest growing cities in Nigeria. The problems of transportation and land use in Ilorin can be summarized into the following: long queue of people daily at ‘bus stops’, the problem of old narrow streets in most of the unplanned areas of the city and the emerging incursion of transport infrastructural facilities into the residential areas. To address these and other urban land-use problems world-wide, various governments have put in place different urban renewal programmes, but in the case of Nigeria little impacts on the city transportation and land-use systems had taken place. This research used exploratory method to justify the essence of planning in transportation system and on land-use in order to enhance and maintain sustainable development. The paper also suggests some measures like; expansion of existing narrow roads and provision of necessary infrastructural facilities, inter modality light rail/tram, creation of modern parks at specified locations as well as enlargement of public and private partnerships-involving the Government, transport associations, financial institutions, the available universities and some other professional bodies to serve as panacea to problems highlighted.