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None can deny that one of the most critical issues in the exploding city of Karachi (or Lahore or Rawalpindi) is traffic and transport.
And none can deny that the standard knee-jerk reaction of our chief ministers, city nazims and municipal administrators to this problem is to build wider roads, more overpasses or underpasses and elevated expressways.
How do we provoke these 'movers and shakers' into absorbing some of the wisdom of that world-renowned urban strategist, former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa? He said, “To make more highways or bigger roads to solve traffic jams is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.” Penalosa visited Pakistan a couple of years ago to share his experiences on urban sustainability with administrators and citizens — the creation of affordable public transport, construction of schools and dispensaries, an increase in public spaces and a reduction in crime rates.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif last year planned to spend Rs3.15bn (equivalent to 10 per cent of the 2008-09 Punjab expenditure on health and education) on the widening of the Canal Bank Road for the 20 per cent of Lahore's eight million citizens who own cars (the rest make do with less than 1,000 aged, creaking so-called private buses, thanks to the demise of the Punjab Road Transport Corporation during his previous regime).
Fortunately, the Supreme Court halted the proposed devastation of thousands of trees on the canal banks and ordered the details of the project to be evaluated. Reportedly, the chief minister is also re-examining the advisability of his proposed elevated expressway over the Murree Road in Rawalpindi.
A headline in the Metropolitan section on Jan 14 “CDGK [City District Government Karachi] constructing flyovers without Sepa [Sindh Environmental Protection Agency] approval”.
The original scheme includes seven overpasses (at Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road near PIDC House, Fatima Jinnah Road near Avari Hotel, Dr Daudpota Road near Hotel Mehran, Jinnah Hospital Road near Regent Plaza, Mubarik Shaheed Road near Gora Qabristan, Sharea Faisal near Chanesar Halt turning, and Shaheed-i-Millat Expressway near PAF City School) which supposedly will transform Sharea Faisal into a signal-free corridor, the fourth in this city government's list of creative solutions to the burgeoning traffic chaos.
In April 2009, the CDGK inserted a notice in the press inviting comments. Shehri, submitted preliminary observations listing the environmental problems and downsides of such a project, highlighting alternative environment-friendly techniques of addressing the issues involved. It pointed out that the Environmental Protection Act 1997 mandated that this road project, which would cost over Rs5m, requires that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) be conducted. Copies were sent to the DG Sepa, the secretary, environment, and relevant CDGK officials.
Despite reminders from Shehri notices from Sepa requesting CDGK to submit an EIA for the flyover project, nothing was done. In October 2009, preliminary construction work started. Shehri filed a complaint against Sepa and CDGK with the environmental protection tribunal of Sindh in early December.
In 2007 the government of Japan offered a soft loan of Rs2.55bn to CDGK for 15 steel flyovers for Karachi. This loan is conditional on the submission to Sepa of EIAs. The Japanese apparently recognise the need for detailed environmental studies before such projects are approved or begun, but our environment-unfriendly government does not.
In 2008 the Sindh High Court ordered the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) to conduct an EIA for the Gizri flyover, comprising an overpass along the Gizri Road. This was only done when the project was almost complete — virtually an exercise in futility.
Shortly after the commencement of construction Sepa wrote to the DHA directing them to file an EIA. This lawful (but impotent) directive was brazenly ignored. On Jan 13, in a related high court case, the DHA was given 60 days to implement the conditionalities of Sepa's EIA approval, but, strangely, was allowed to open the flyover at its discretion, which it did the next day.
Flyovers benefit private cars, ultimately boosting congestion by increasing the number of single-occupant vehicles. It has been internationally established that traffic clogging can only be eased by shifting commuters to buses and trains. Vested interests will not let this happen. For instance, a setback in the US in 1936 — General Motors, Exxon and Firestone formed National City Lines, a company whose primary purpose was to buy up public transport companies that posed competition to the motor-car, and close them down. Within less than three decades, over 100 urban electric surface-rail systems (including Pacific Electric which carried over 110 million passengers a year) in 45 cities serving 56 communities were eliminated.
Today, governments in the Third World have taken over the environmentally-degrading function of promoting the motor-car. Instead of spending taxpayers' money on comprehensive traffic studies establishing affordable and convenient public-transport systems, and implementing laws to discipline traffic, reduce parking chaos and eliminate encroachments on roads, the development mantra has become 'mega-project-based' with more roads, wider highways, flyovers, underpasses, elevated expressways and the like. Mistakenly, these 'innovations' are expected to address the escalating issues of vehicle congestion, air and noise pollution, fuel wastage and futile man-hours in traffic jams.
With the rapidly deteriorating world ecology, including Pakistan's, it is imperative that each and every one of our decisions is based on that which is environmentally advantageous. A people-friendly public-transport infrastructure must be our number one priority.
The above having been written, it was reported in yesterday's Metropolitan section that Sepa had given approval for the “under-construction flyovers”. Despite the World Bank's finding that the environment of Pakistan is degrading at a rate equivalent to six per cent of GDP, the government seems unable to implement the applicable laws. The obsequiousness of the environmental protection agencies to the powers that be in industry and politics augurs ill for the rapidly deteriorating ecology of this city and country. More follows.
