FG Seeks to Rehabilitate the Carter Bridge

The ministry’s Director of Bridges, Mr Abishigh Dominic, told newsmen on Wednesday in Lagos that once the contract was awarded, work would start on the bridge.
 
``We just finished discussing the issue of the bridge now. We have just made the paper for the award of the contract to repair the bridge.
 
``We have provision in the budget which we think we want to use to do the bridge. Work will start this year, but I do not know in what month the work will start,” Dominic said.
 
Corroborating this, the Director of Highways, Federal Ministry of Works, South-West, Mr Ejikeme Mgbemena, noted that routine work had been regularly carried out on the bridge.
 
Reports say that the Carter Bridge, first constructed in 1901, has lost some of its expansion joints, just as the covers of some manholes on the bridge have also disappeared,  constituting danger to motorists. 
 
Carter Bridge is one of three bridges connecting Lagos Island to the mainland and when it was constructed, it was the only bridge connecting the mainland with the island.
 
The other two are the Eko Bridge and the Third Mainland Bridge, which is also currently undergoing rehabilitation.
 
It was originally constructed as a steel bridge by the British colonial government prior to independence in 1960 and was dismantled, redesigned and rebuilt in 1970.