Orange Reign

She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes…

The Orange line train project in many ways epitomises the PML-N government. It is callous, brazen, unaffordable and Punjab-Oriented. The lack of transparency on this project and the manner in which the PML-N continues to get away with it, speaks volume about the contempt with which this government holds dissenting opinion and the lack of effective political opposition in Punjab.

Based on the figures supplied by the Lahore Bachao Tehreek, almost 100,000 persons will be displaced from poor residential areas where they have been living for generations to make way for the train. Based on government sources almost 3,000 households or 21,000 persons will be displaced and paid compensation. However this figure does not account for the vast majority who do not have ownership documents and yet have right of abode. The PPP government in 1970 introduced the Katchi Abadi act for this very purpose to protect the rights of people living in such Abadis. Sadly, today’s callous government is not concerned about the rights of the poor and dispossessed.

This project will affect many of the city’s important and historical building including Shalimar Bagh, Chauburgi, the GPO building, Lahore High Court, Jain Mandir, as well as other priceless buildings which have been listed in detail in various articles, even UNESCO has written to the government but to no avail, the Honourable Lahore High Court issued a stay but the government of Punjab continues to construct with impunity so much so that one of the government’s own lawyer found his position untenable and resigned in protest, but like a water of ducks back that does not deter the provincial government as it continues its brazen and philistine assault – after the Supreme Court’s decision on the Signal Free Corridor the Punjab Government feels smug, with some justification, that it is within its right to destroy all that makes Lahore a historically special place and make a mockery of our heritage.

The project is undersized and overpriced and will result in a millstone that for many years shall come to financially haunt this and future governments. Lahore is a large and growing city of approx. seven million inhabitants requires bold and planned solutions, a metro that carries 250,000 trips will not make a dent in congestion in the city. The Chinese built a similar capacity metro in Addis Ababa that cost $ 21.3 million per km, in Lagos a similar capacity system was built for $27 million per km, yet in Lahore this is costing over $ 60m / km, why when the technology and labour costs are similar is this project so expensive?

This directly translates into project economics, something that the Punjab government doesn’t understand. It is already heavily subsidising the Lahore and Pindi metrobus projects, because of a high capital cost, low passenger capacity and consequently low revenue. Given that it is all on loan, the Orange line will require 2 million passengers paying Rs 50 each for it to break even, but as the planned capacity is only 250,000 passengers per day, it will require an estimated subsidy of 170 Rs per passenger.

The Delhi metro carries 3.4 million passengers daily, what actually Lahore needs is something similar. With almost 11 million daily vehicular trips (estimated/projected by LRMT study) in Lahore if alleviation of congestion is the objective then what is really needed is a system that can carry at least 3 million trips/ day what is being offered if we include the metrobus is a system that caters for only 400,000 trips hardly a drop in the ocean for a city the size of Lahore.  What is needed is to follow the original plan as envisaged by Systra MVA and develop four lines of heavy rail each line capable of carrying 800,000 passengers each, similar to any other major city in the world, the extra revenue would easily justify the expense of tunnelling and other more suitable engineering solutions.

What is also needed is connectivity between the lines as well as connectivity between major transportation nodes such as the Lahore Railway stations and the Badami Bagh bus station, so that passengers can seamlessly transfer from one line onto the other, unfortunately what is being planned is a disjointed system, for example there is no proper connection between the metrobus or the orange line. The original design envisaged twin tunnels from Chauburgi to Sultanpura/UET and an underground station directly underneath under the Lahore Railway station with a direct connection for passengers and their luggage as is standard engineering practice. The present arrangement features an Orange line connection that is 600 m away from the railway station entrance with the result that any poor passenger wishing to catch a train will have to climb down the stairs from the Orange line station and drag his luggage all the way to the train station, a non-functional design that creates rather than solves problems.

The Punjab government should revisit the Orange line concept and base it solid on a financial feasibility and what is for the long term good of the city, it should aim to develop an integrated city wide transportation plan with seamless ties between the various modes of transport taking into account the city’s exiting major transport nodes such as the airport, Badami Bagh as well as allowing for future growth. But all this requires time and planning, something that is in direct conflict with our government’s obsession of completing everything before 2018 and so the economy will have to bear the cost and additional loans but with no logical end in sight.