An elevated disaster

Published February 21, 2022
The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.
The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

ONE of the major concerns related to local government systems in Pakistan is the usurpation of municipal planning by provincial government entities such as development authorities. This has been a persistent issue, especially in the management of large cities like Lahore and Karachi. Given the resources that can be generated from metropolitan economies, provinces are reluctant to devolve power, and instead rely on cities as a way of extracting financial surpluses or distributing preferential patronage.

The issue of not allowing citizens of a Pakistani city any voice in how that city is supposed to develop is one that surfaces on a weekly basis across Pakistan. This past week it took a familiar shape, when reports of the chief minister Punjab approving the PC-1 of the Gulberg to Motorway 4-lane dual carriage Elevated Expressway (EEW) were published in this newspaper. The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs60 billion, of which at least 10 per cent will be for land acquisition purposes.

There are three lines of argument that can be made against the project, all of which are worth considering sequentially. The first is on the project’s own grounds: project planning documents cite the project as a necessity because of growing congestion in inner city areas and the need to provide motor-vehicular traffic in important parts of the city (Cantt, Gulberg and Jail Road) a connection to the motorway network. The project aims to do this by building a 10-kilometre long EEW over the existing route of the Cantt drain, passing through densely populated settlements in Tauheed Park, Gulshan Ravi and Shadman.

The premise of resolving congestion by building another road — elevated or not — is a very weak one, given the experience of suburban sprawl and expansion seen in many other parts of the world. Secondly, the rationale of connectivity of central locations is also very weak given that these locations are already connected via mostly signal-free routes to the motorway network through the Canal Road, where peak travel times do not exceed 30 mins.

Concerns regarding the Lahore-based Rs60bn Elevated Expressway project do not matter to the administration.

An additional point worth considering is that the project was conceived at least seven years ago at a time when the Lahore Eastern Bypass (and Sialkot Motorway link to Kala Shah Kaku) had not been built. The construction of this particular road in the interim period now allows for traffic originating in northeast Lahore and around the airport to get to the motorway network via the access-controlled Ring Road in a reasonably short time duration.

A second line of argument against the project pertains to opportunity and socioeconomic costs: Rs60bn is a lot of money to spend on yet another automobile-centric project. By the project’s own assessment, it will benefit at most 30,000-35,000 vehicles on a daily basis (an estimate that is based on existing traffic flows in these areas, not all of which are in the direction of the motorway network). This money, even if it remains earmarked for transportation purposes, can easily be spent on a public transport solution, such as feeder buses or a new BRT line. These will help reduce the toxic emissions stifling life in Lahore and improve liveability and employability in the city by expanding mobility options for non-car users.

An additional cost to consider is the environmental and social dislocation that will be caused by the project’s construction. As per the project’s own environmental assessment, 1,715 fully formed trees will have to be removed in order to make way for the elevated expressway. This seems like a contradiction, albeit by now a familiar one, for a government that talks up its environmental credentials on a regular basis.

The human cost of dislocation is also something that needs to be factored in. A total of 900 kanals (nearly 0.5 square kilometre) of dense, fully built-up land has to be acquired for this particular project. It will directly impact 563 families (some of whom have already been forced off in parts of Gulshan Ravi) who own property in the project path, while an additional set of unenumerated labourers will experience permanent loss of livelihood due to the closure of commercial activities in the area.

Finally, the third line of argument against the project is legal-political: it doesn’t matter whether the project makes perfect sense or no sense at all. What matters is that this project is an example of municipal planning in which the citizens of the municipality have no say at all. It is a Rs60bn outlay being decided on a whim by the chief executive of a province under the advice of a provincially controlled development authority.

Residents and those working in the area interviewed during the course of the project’s environmental assessment have shown ambivalence about it. Several specifically said that they don’t see the point when signal-free corridors already exist. Shopkeepers and businesses in LDA Market (located in Package 3 of the EEW) expressed unanimous concerns about the loss of livelihood, while residents of Tauheed Park (Package 2) said that they are unwilling to move from a neighbourhood they’ve been living in for decades and do not want to disrupt social relations. Several have also rightly pointed out that the project does not exist in the existing masterplan of the city and has never been mentioned in any transport plan either.

All of these concerns do not matter to the administration proposing this particular project. It is as clear an example as any of usurpation of municipal functions and the undermining of any basic sense of how local governments deserve to function. It is also supremely ironic that a party accustomed to disparaging unbalanced fiscal spending of the previous government is now taking the same type of decisions now that it is in power.

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2022

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