KARACHI: The city seems to be heading towards a traffic chaos with over half a million motorcycles having been brought on roads over the past five years, it emerged on Sunday.

With an increase in local production and subsequent drop in prices, two-wheelers have become a preferred mode of transport for people who have suffered the most amid the fast deteriorating public transport system.

However, city planners and urban experts say that the increased use of motorcycles reflects not only that the people prefer their own transport to public transport, but also that city roads are being congested with vehicles without any major infrastructure development carried out over the past five years.

“Since 2009, the excise and taxation department of Sindh has registered 1.342 million new motorbikes,” said a source citing recently-compiled data. “More than half of them are meant for Karachi, as the rest were registered in other districts of the province. You can safely estimate there are definitely over half a million motorbikes which have become part of Karachi traffic during the past five years.”

The figure is also confirmed by motorcycle assemblers who see Karachi as the largest market of locally-manufactured motorbikes in the province, with Sindh emerging as the second major province after Punjab, where some two million motorcycles hit roads every year.

“For some 12 years we only had Japanese brands available in local markets. They were sold at Rs70,000 a bike,” said Sabir Sheikh of the Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers, adding that the assembling of Chinese motorbikes, however, had changed the entire business in the country.

“Now you can get a 70cc motorbike for Rs40,000 and the price range varies for motorcycles with 125cc engine and above.”

It may seem a positive sign for industrial activity and a large number of people to own vehicles, but it does not inspire those monitoring the city’s infrastructure closely.

Amber Alibhai of the Shehri-CBE says that one must look into the reasons for the increase in motorbike numbers in Karachi. “In the kind of traffic that we have, motorbike should have been the least preferred choice of the common man due to fatal accidents it involves,” she says. “Still people are buying it. So one should look into its reason and the reason is that the poor man has been left with no other choice. Here the number of buses is on the decline while motorbike sale is going up consistently.”

Besides, she says, the metropolis only got flyovers in the name of infrastructure development that has only helped in doing away with traffic signals, but they have not offered any extra space for vehicles being added to city traffic. “Resultantly, traffic jam has become a matter of routine on every single road. The roads which until a few years ago were considered smooth for traffic, now no more provide easy travelling facility,” she adds.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2014