The City District Government Lahore (CDGL) is all set to launch a mega traffic management plan in the city by upgrading the road network. The first phase of the plan would cost Rs 338,000,000.
Twenty roads were identified for the first phase of the plan, which would be remodeled and widened, keeping in view the projected traffic volume. They would also be given special parking systems, service lanes, CCTV cameras, flyovers and underpasses, as per requirement.
The areas marked for remodeling include roads around Alhamra, China Chowk to Shadman Chowk and Kinnard College, Shadbagh, Railway Station to Lorri Adda, Circular Road, Azadi Chowk, Shahdara Chowk, Begum Road, Daroghawala, Cooper Store, Faisal Town, Gulshan Iqbal Moor, Eden Centre, Garhi Shaho, Ghazi Chowk, Mazang, Litton road, Bahawlpur Road and Model Town. Lahore Division Commissioner Jawad Rafiq Malik held a meeting to finalise the traffic management plan, which was attended by Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA), CDGL, Pakistan Horticulture Aauthority (PHA), and other concerned departments’ officials on Tuesday. The meeting deliberated salient features of the plan and decided to map out short-term plans to normalise traffic on the roads which were regularly clogged with traffic. The meeting decided a check would be kept on encroachment on these roads, and needless traffic signals would be replaced with purposeful ones. They added that marriage halls, educational institutions and hospitals would be shifted off the main roads, in a bid to keep the flow of traffic uninterrupted.
However, officials who attended the meeting said the plan had some flaws which should be addressed before the launch of the plan. “Missing signs, road-markings are also one of the problems creating such traffic problems in the provincial capital,” they said. A senior official of TEPA said encroachments on major and minor roads blocked the smooth flow of traffic in the city, adding that this was one of the major factors behind bottlenecks. He said a traffic study conducted by TEPA in 2006 had shown that the traffic volume on all city roads had crossed the international standard capacity of lanes, which was 8,000 vehicles per lane. The new traffic management plan did not discuss this point in detail, he added. A number of bottlenecks on city roads are a permanent nuisance for Lahoris, resulting in traffic jams for hours on a daily basis and disrupting routine life. Bottlenecks were defined as areas where at a certain point, a three-lane road suddenly narrowed to two lanes or less.
The City Traffic Police (CTP) and TEPA identified around 20 bottlenecks in the Lahore, which have also been mentioned in Master Plan 2021.
These are Chowk Taxali, Chowk Chauburji, Chowk Istanbul, Chowk Davis leading to Mall Road, Zafar Ali Road, Bhekewal Morr, Dubai Chowk, Qainchi Amar Sidhu, , Chowk Shalamar, Do Moria Pul, Moochi Gate, Minar-e-Pakistan (Azadi Chowk), Chowk Yateem Khana, Morr Samanabad, Scheme Morr, Qurtaba Chowk, Canal Bridge on Jail Road, Lakshami Chowk and Regal Chowk. Certain areas of the Walled City, like Fan Road, Macleod Road, Montgomery Road and Katchery Chowk are also major bottlenecks. Meanwhile, Main Boulevard Gulberg is another major road perpetually found in a gridlock.
