THE federal government’s supplementary budget and the Sindh government’s nine-month budget have been announced. There is no discernible mention of mass transit for Karachi.

The important point is that what is at stake is not just how much money we can afford to move the people in a given city. We need to consider the cost of not planning a mass transit project for a city of the size of Karachi.

Sooner or later this city will have to have a mass transit system. The more we delay, the costlier it will become. Had a project been undertaken some 20 to 30 years ago, it would have been much cheaper.

Once a substantial portion of transport is shifted from individual vehicle operators to a mass transit system, there will be substantial saving of fuel. Once the fuel consumption is reduced so will be the air pollution. Once we have cleaner air, we will have fewer respiratory and related illnesses. Can we afford not to do that?

For many families affording cars is not a legitimate option. Commuters operating their cars are often stuck in traffic for hours. This is unbearable and is obvious cause of mental stress.

What is a short-term solution? Let us use the under-utilised Lyari expressway for multicar buses starting from the toll plaza to the end of expressway, using both up and down tracks. We will need to build about a dozen stops.

Railway tracks are already available from Keamari to Landhi. We can run commuter trains frequently (every five minutes) during rush hours and with longer intervals (30 minutes) during non-rush hours. The timetable for intercity trains may have to be adjusted but that should not be impossible.

Most of the cargo trains may be operated with similar time adjustments. The stops on the Lyari expressway and on the commuter railroad can be linked by express buses running along major east-west arteries such as Jinnah Avenue, Rashid Minhas Road, Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Shahrah-i-Quaideen, and Garden Road/Haji Abdullah Haroon Road.

Once the circular railway is restored, this system can be connected to it making sure that each stop has a bus link for onward journey.

The long term solution includes underground and light rail systems covering the growing needs of the city.

Arif Kazmi

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2018