01 March 2004	Monday	09 Muharram 1425

KARACHI, Feb 29: The city government will construct underpasses on busy road intersections to ensure smooth flow of traffic in the city, particularly on main arteries.

For the construction of underpasses, the city government has selected some important busy intersections to facilitate traffic flow on the main arteries without any blockade.

In the first phase, Sharae Faisal is selected for the construction of underpasses, which is the most busy artery in Karachi. Due to often movement of VVIPs on this road, it is learnt that traffic signals pose security threat to the VVIPs on one side while on the other, people have to suffer due to road closure until the VVIPs pass.

Considering the multi-dimensional benefits of the underpasses, the city government has selected some locations, including Hotel Regent Plaza traffic signal, Hotel Mehran traffic signal, Tipu Sultan Road, Karsaz Road and PAF College intersections, it is learnt.

Despite a number of traffic signals on busy arteries, the heavy traffic often causes inconvenience to pedestrians, particularly during peak hours in morning and afternoon.

It may be mentioned here that in order to facilitate the pedestrians, steel bridges were constructed on busy roads in the past, which failed to attract pedestrians.

The steel structures, abandoned for want of maintenance, are mostly in the use of beggars and anti-social elements while people instead of using pedestrian bridges prefer to cross roads in the midst of heavy traffic. Nevertheless, in such attempts, a number of pedestrians are killed in accidents.

Meanwhile, the city district government is also preparing a report on high-rise buildings to find out whether all of these were adhering to the car parking facilities as shown in their approved plan by the Karachi Building Control Authority.

The report is being prepared on the instruction of Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad who was given a presentation at a meeting held for making strategy to ensure smooth traffic flow on main arteries of the city.

It is pertinent to mention here that concrete structures were coming up fast in Saddar Town replacing the single and double storey residences into highrise buildings without taking into consideration the parking facility. The parking floors, approved in the building plan, in most of the cases have disappeared as the space is being used for purposes other than the parking facility.

In this regard, the city government would submit the report with its recommendations to the governor by March 5 to formulate over all strategy and ensure restoration of parking facilities in accordance to the approved plans, sources said.

In the absence of mass transit facility in the mega city, which is spreading continuously in all directions, people are left with the option of using vehicular traffic to reach their offices. As a result, four-wheeler traffic is on the rise and in the absence of car parking areas, people often park their vehicles on roads, which mars traffic flow.

The government, which was seized with the issue, was working on a plan to ensure flow of free but regulated traffic by removing all bottlenecks from main arteries, the sources added.