After massive road infrastructure development in Karachi during the nine years of Musharraf’s tenure, a relief was somehow provided to the city where provisions of transport facilities have always remained a major issue.
And despite all public pressures and the struggle of the elected nominees of the metropolitan, recommendations of traffic experts, number of traffic development projects could not be materialised so far, and the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway is one of them.
With the passage of time, transport issues have once again cropped up in the city as all important areas of the city are facing the problems of traffic gridlocks, congestion, wastage of fuel, time and energy, parking, lack of public transport etc. The absence of parking areas and acute massive encroachment on main streets, service roads, and footpaths passing through all big and small commercial hubs, markets and bazaars in the city create massive hurdles in the flow of smooth traffic. Traffic gridlocks can be witnessed at the Shahrah-e-Faisal, the MA Jinnah Road, the University Road, the Shahrah-e- Pakistan, the Shers Shah Suri Road, the MT Khan Road and other major arteries during peak hours.
Commuters are compelled to travel in congested buses, mini-buses/coaches plying on the roads of the city that are short in number to fulfill the requirement of the rapidly increasing population of the port city.
According to the statistics provided by the secretary of the Karachi Transport Ittehad, Irshad Bukhari, Karachi needs 2,000 more buses to fill the gap of transport facilities.
However, according to the data prepared by the Transports and Communication Department of the city government, the number of vehicles plying on the roads of the city is 3.3 million.
Out of them, 2.4 million vehicles are owned by citizens and transport companies, including 1,297,000 motorcycles, 1,099,000 cars, 199,000 vans, 154,000 rickshaws, 74,000 taxis, 16,161 mini-buses, 6,496 buses, 12,600 trucks and 16,000 mini-trucks. Out of the 3.3 million vehicles, 0.9 million are inter-city buses.
Only 3,000 buses, 8,000 mini-buses and 7,000 coaches are plying on the roads of the city with a shortage of 2,000 buses.
It means that the citizens are facing a 50 percent shortage of public transport vehicles. Consequently, commuters have to travel in congested buses or sit on top of mini-buses/coaches. Approximately, five to six million commuters daily use these vehicles.
These vehicles are registered with the city and provincial governments, but the dangerous water tankers that are freely plying on roads are not registered with any traffic department.
With Karachi’s population estimated to exceed the figure of 30 million by the year 2030 by the dint of increasing flow of rural population to the urban areas, the issue of transport is set to become a big problem in the coming days.
In addition to the shortage of public transport vehicles, the commuters are also facing other problems including robberies in buses, strikes, terrorism, increasing fuel prices, exorbitant fares etc.
According to some owners of the public transport vehicles, more than 3,000 buses, mini-buses and coaches had been set ablaze by miscreants in the city so far during violence and political parties’ strikes, and the government and the law enforcement agencies have miserably failed to provide protection to transporters.
Therefore, a large number of transporters have shifted their businesses from Karachi to other parts of the country.
The deteriorating situation of public transport in Karachi is quite in contrast with the situation in Lahore, where the provincial government has launched many important projects for the provision of better facilities to the masses.
Recently, the Punjab government started a new air-conditioned bus service in Lahore. But the government of Sindh, despite its tall claims about launching environmental friendly transport vehicles for the masses of Karachi or reviving the circular railway, has practically done nothing so far.
It has repeatedly been told that after its revival, the KCR would facilitate 70, 000 passengers a day. Therefore, this project is a real solution to Karachi’s old traffic problems.
One of the important modifications has been added to the existing plan of reviving the KCR is the elevation of its tracks, measuring about 20 to 22 kilometres, to avoid trespassing. The KCR was suspended in 1997 due to heavy losses incurred by the Pakistan Railways. Now the KUTC has been entrusted with resurrecting the KCR along the 55-kilometre track as a viable travel mode within the city, where travel time on bus has shot up nearly 45 percent in a year.
The need of the hour is to revive the KCR project on a war-footing basis and this must not be hampered by any political intent to deprive the citizens of modern transport facilities, especially when this city is facing a plausible surge in its population.
The writer is a student of Mass Communication at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology, Karachi.
Revival of KCR: A real solution for city’s traffic problems
