Canal Road widening project, hanging in the balance since 2007, is back to life taking a jumpstart with the axing of 111 trees at both sides of the canal without wasting a single minute right after the historical verdict of Supreme Court of Pakistan. Around 800 to 1,000 trees are expected to be chopped but at the place of one tree, as much as four trees are planned to be planted.
Instead of 14 kilometers, 3.5km stretch will be widened. Communication and Works Department (C&WD) has also replaced LDA to carry out the Canal Road widening project. The SC allowed the Punjab government on Thursday to restore the Canal Road widening project to help ease traffic woes at the Canal Road, which runs across the city, linking all major arteries including Ferozepur Road, Jail Road and the Mall. The work is at full throttle since the verdict.
Punjab government has taken on board various departments specially C&WD, NLC, NESPAK and PHA. In the first stage, NESPAK has been tasked to redesign the project in the line of mediation committee formed on the instruction of SC to frame viable recommendations for the project. On the order of Punjab government, PHA has also intensified the tree-cutting drive.
PHA Additional DG Captain (r) Muhammad Usman Younis told Pakistan Today that a committee had been formed that had been executing the tree-cutting process. “On Thursday, we cut 48 trees from FC College underpass to Jail Road underpass and 63 trees were chopped from Jail Road underpass to The Mall underpass on Friday,” he added.
Younis said that the government had directed to clear the area from Doctor’s Hospital to The Mall at the canal. “Around 42 feet width will be made available for the widening of the road and I expect that the task will be completed in eight to 10 days approximately,” he mentioned. PHA would also compile data bearing name of tree, size of tree and its covered area, he added.
PHA Canal Director Niaz Muhammad said that work was going on round the clock in a befitting manner. He said that skilled manpower had been employed to complete the task as soon as possible. A C&WD official said that the government has planned to widen three most congested points stretching on 3. 5km, changing the previous plan of widening 14-kilometer stretch from Dharampura underpass to Thokar Niaz Beg.
He said that government had already allocated Rs 10 million in the provincial budget 2011-2012. As per the initial plan, LDA had to execute the project under Urban Development Programme but now C&WD would do the job, he revealed. A senior official in LDA said that Canal Road widening project got off the ground in the light of guidelines drafted by the committee formed by Supreme Court of Pakistan, which took suo-moto action in 2009 on the outburst of civil society and environmentalists.
As per information provided by the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, the committee was formed in February 2011, headed by Dr Parvez Hassan, a renowned environmentalist, who was tasked with the consent of the parties concerned, to sort out an amicable solution to the issue of traffic congestion at the Canal Road in the backdrop of environmental threats, especially to trees.
The committee, comprising of known urban planners, conservationists and environmentalists including Babar Ali, Sartaj Aziz, Umera, Arif Hassan, Javed Jabbar, Lahore commissioner and Abid Sulehri, conducted two to three public hearings involving LDA, NESPAK, jurists, high-standard educational institutions and people belonging to different spheres of life to lay down the recommendations, the official added.
“The recommendations have rejected basic plan of widening of 14-kilometer patch of Canal Road at a cost of Rs 3.15 billion from Dharampura to Thokar Niaz Beg and proposed remodeling of three gridlocks on the canal to ease traffic congestion,” official said. The CDGL along with the Punjab government and the Traffic Engineering & Planning Agency (TEPA) planned to widen the Canal Road in 2007 as a solution for congestion on the Canal Road due to the present and predicted mushroom growth of automobiles in the city.
The project entails widening the present road by adding two lanes; one for four wheelers and one for two wheelers on either side of the road. Given the plan, at least 21,000 trees had to be axed and devastate 60 acres of green belt along the canal under asphalt. Government was all set to launch the project but Supreme Court took suo-moto notice and restrained the execution in 2009. Later, a public hearing of the Environment Impact Assessment was held which termed the proposal for widening the canal a flawed solution for the traffic problem on the Canal Road.
Urban planners were of the view that road widening historically failed as a solution for traffic bottlenecks. “The widened roads only attract more traffic and eventually end up being inadequate for the ever increasing traffic load. Road widening in settled urban areas comes at a high price in land acquisition and often needs un-welcomed remodeling of the given spatial pattern, loss of heritage buildings or precious open areas in the city,” they said.
The project, planners said, would transfer the traffic congestion to all underpasses, converging three-lane traffic throughout the Canal Road. “The three major culprits blocking the flow of traffic on the canal are the unauthorized vendors on the verges, the lack of bus slips for public transport and the animal driven vehicles. Hence, canal traffic could be smoother by addressing the above-mentioned points,” urban planners said.
