KARACHI, Sept 21: Transporters continue to flout all traffic rules at the main intersection of Lea market. As usual, they would park their vehicles in a haphazard manner on either side of the main road and its link arteries which has now become a common sight, as well as a nuisance to general public who have to feel the brunt of frequent and prolonged traffic jams, a survey shows.

Residents of the area mainly hold operators of upcountry transport responsible for the daylong chaos, observing that apart from violating all traffic rules, they would occupy every open space available in and around the market illegally.

“There is no place left open by the illegally parked vehicles in any part of the whole Lea Market area but it seems that the situation has gone beyond the control of the authorities concerned and the traffic police,” a resident pointed out, saying that pedestrians could hardly walk even on footpaths in peak hours either in the morning or evening.

A little lesser problem in the area is created by encroachers against whom campaigns had been launched repeatedly in the past but without any positive results. The encroachers would create further hindrance in the flow of vehicular traffic and block wide strips of roads on both sides. Although the encroachments are removed during the campaign but they would re-emerge soon after the anti-encroachment staff leave the place.

A perturbed resident said one could not move freely in any part of Lea Market, Kajoor Bazaar, Mohabat Khanji Road, Kharadar, Mithadar, etc., only due to illegal parking of vehicles and encroachments elsewhere in the area.

He recalled that some time ago, the goods transport business had been shifted from the old city areas like Chand Bibi Road, Nanakwara and Bheempura through the action by the Saddar Town administration, but the Lyari Town administration had never taken such an action in the city’s most congested areas where transporters had established their illegal bus termini and stands across the town.

Even the hue and cry repeatedly raised by local residents and frequent visitors demanding shifting of these termini at least to a place away from the residential areas failed to receive any response from the administration, many residents complained, indicating that violation of all traffic rules by the transporters at Lea Market and Sheedi Village Road had now become a routine.

The most painful aspect of these violation is that transport operators would park their vehicles in the middle of the road allowing no other vehicle to pass through the road.

The local residents have vehemently appealed to the government to shift the bus transport and goods transport business from the residential areas of the town to some other place.