Repairs worth Rs 479.5 million on IJ Principal Road by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) seem to have gone down the drain as the dilapidated condition of the artery dividing the twin cites has become a nightmare for motorists.
The 10.2-kilometer road, which starts from GT Road and ends at Faizabad, consists of two sections: from Double Road Chowk to Faizabad and from Dhoke Najju to Khayabane Sir Syed. The road section from Double Road Chowk to Faizabad is in complete shambles. Motorists continue to face difficulties owing to the uneven surface of the road.
The IJP Road is one of the busiest roads in the twin cities and the civic body needs to make arrangements for the road’s repairs to avert accidents and maintain a smooth flow of traffic, an Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) official said on condition of anonymity. According to an estimate, as many as 100,000 vehicles ply the road daily.
Vehicular traffic coming from Perwadhi 9th Avenue, Double Road and Pindora Chungi towards Faizabad face traffic congestion, he said. The motorists suffer mostly at night due to the mostly inoperative street lights and frequent load shedding. The road that divides Rawalpindi and Islamabad also has insufficient amount of pedestrian bridges, making it hard for the people to cross the road. The road also has no system of cleaning and dust clouds keep the road covered at almost all times.
A motorist, Ashfaq Ali, said the CDA needed to repair the damaged portions of the road and install road signs to alert motorists during the night. He said several accidents had occurred due to the road’s dilapidated condition.
A senior CDA official said that the road started to deteriorate because of heavy vehicular traffic on the upper section of the road. He said the lower section of the road was in a relatively better condition. The road was designed for vehicles carrying material weighing 8.2 tonnes but unfortunately, vehicles carrying 20 to 30 tonnes of material ply it regularly, he said., adding that overloaded trucks coming from the 9th Avenue damaged the portion of the road leading to Faizabad.
“How could the road survive when trucks carrying 20 to 25 tonnes of material ply it daily? We have asked the department concerned to keep an eye on overloaded trucks, but it paid no heed to our requests,” he said.
