LAHORE – Travelling down the Canal Road is one experience that people visiting Lahore can never forget. A row of trees, antique, and gracefully aging, line the edges of the smooth wide road. People lounge on the mounds of green zones on either side, under the canopy of the tall poplar and eucalyptus trees.
In the middle of the road, flows the canal, or ‘neher’ as it is known popularly. Glistening in the sunlight, its waters rippling gently, the canal, gives the visage of Lahore’s colonial history, when it was built. But as beautiful as Canal Road seems late at night, or at mid-day, it becomes as ugly during rush hours.
Traffic jams, that occur every evening between 5pm to 7pm, for instance, at the various underpasses situated on Canal Road, is appalling. The congestion problem: The main traffic congestion occurs mostly at the underpasses including Campus Underpass, University Road Intersection, the Mall Underpass and the Jail Road Underpass.
Even though Lahore has several areas that face the ugly knots of traffic congestion, especially in the old city, where roads are narrower, and cannot accommodate so many cars; because of its cultural appeal, Canal Road has always grabbed more attention. In May 2006, the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) announced that it was going to widen Canal Road and add an extra lane.
Ugly red crosses were marked on the 150-year-old trees there. After Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, approved the plan, severe antagonism arose from a group of civilians who called themselves the Lahore Bachao Tehreek, who protested that the trees along the canal were historically and culturally significant, while environmentally it would be a disaster to cut them down, only to widen the road to give way to more cars and therefore more air pollution.
What made their protest even more concrete was the fact that widening the road could in no way solve the traffic problems. In fact studies have shown that traffic only increases if the road is made wider. The traffic problem on Canal Road is not a small issue. Being one of the central roads in Lahore, and the road most opted in cases of crossing over to the other side of town, the number of cars and the intensity of a traffic jam has made this road into more of a problem rather than a luxury.
At peak hours when schools and colleges close, and later in the evening when people return home from their offices, the road is jam-packed with almost bumper to bumper traffic in certain parts. Even if one car or motorcycle is slow or stops for a reason, the fall back is on the rest of the road till a long way back. This causes severe traffic jams.
Underpasses on right and left lanes?: Moreover bureaucratic failure has caused this road to be turned into something far from being one of the best roads. While top officials boast about how much work has been done on Canal Road it is ironic that with all the attention given to this particular road, the results are not only disastrous, but also the opposite of what was expected.
Instead of working out a solid feasibility report which would precisely plan the roads before the underpasses were built, it was only later discovered that the jam was occurring mainly because of the underpasses and the roads above having a varying number of lanes.
Traffic Engineering and Planning Authority (TEPA) Chief Engineer Saifur Rehman continues to uphold this plan and thinks that it is the only way out. “The traffic problem arises on Canal Road mainly because the underpasses have been made with three lanes, while the road above is only of two lanes,” he says. “TEPA had planned to widen the road by one extra lane to accommodate the cars that fit into the underpasses in three lanes,” Rehman says.
The ‘trivial’ matter of the trees: But widening the road means cutting down the trees. TEPA’s plan to widen the road means starting from Thokar Niaz Baig to Dharampura and in a 14-kilometer stretch of land. This means that around 530 trees are to be cut down. Even this is waived aside by Rehman. “We contacted the Punjab University and they confirmed with us that these trees are old and diseased, and it’s just better to cut them down. We even told the NGO people that we would plant more trees in compensation,” he says.
The only other alternative, he says, is not economically feasible. It involves widening several adjacent roads, and building flyovers. The view of the traffic police is also similar to TEPA’s when it comes to this issue. Lahore Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Captain (r) Mobin concurs with TEPA when he says that the major issue is because of the lanes. “The rush hours reach a height from 12:30pm to 2:30pm and from 5pm to 8pm,” says Mobin.
This, therefore, hardly leaves any time for less traffic congestion. “There are two lanes in each underpass going above, two more lanes coming from above and one lane going towards the left to turn onto a different road,” he says. “Our major problems occur at the Jail Road underpass, the FC College Underpass, Icchra Underpass and Campus Underpass and then lastly the Jinnah Hospital underpass,” the CTO says.
SP Asif, of Saddar Traffic Zone, under whom the entire Canal Road falls, also agrees with this being the root cause of the problem. “The formula is simple to understand,” he says. “If there are more vehicles, and less space on the road, there will be more traffic congestion” he says. “Of course people are all racing to be the first one off the road, so that is another problem. Even one small harmless accident will have its fall back till a long way off,” Asif says.
“The only way we can help is to manage the traffic on our own, but we cannot take liberty to comment upon the engineering of the road,” says Mobin. “Our officers have taken to manually controlling the traffic at each underpass. This may also cause some delays for those waiting in line and it appears to be a traffic jam,” he says.
How much wider will it be: Ahmed Rafay Alam, a renowned lawyer, explains that the growth of Lahore has always been from the north west side of present day Lahore (areas like that Walled City, and the rest of Old Lahore), going onto the south east direction (areas including newly developed parts like Faisal Town, the peripheral parts of Model Town, Green Town, WAPDA Town, etc).
This means that the movement of traffic is also in the same direction. Canal Road runs directly across this, splitting the city into two parts. Why is the government so adamant in spending so much to widen Canal road? “Canal Road lies in a strategic position, catering to people of highest socio-economic classes,” says Kamil Khan Mumtaz, a well-respected architect.
“There are properties owned by foreigners, along with other places like the State Guest House, expensive colleges such as the Aitcheson College, the golf course, and the airport. But the contradiction is that once it is widened, everyone will want to use it for linking purposes, and traffic will increase once again. Will they widen it further then?” he asks
“Widening the road, and building underpasses are only aspirins for a headache,” says Mumtaz.
“The real problem is the number of increasing cars, resulting in environmental degradation, energy crises, and social inequity. This is never touched upon by the government. They have never bothered to invest in public transport which can carry 50 people, instead of having 50 cars on the same road and causing congestion.”
He believes in the long-term cars must be discouraged. This is a global phenomenon now and developed countries have already realised that cars are becoming more of a problem. European countries for instance, rely heavily on public transport and on some roads cars are not even allowed.
