THE twin cities are rapidly becoming a metaphor for traffic woes, leaving behind Karachi and Lahore in terms of traffic jams, mismanagement and abysmally poor road infrastructure. The Islamabad Expressway that connects the GT Road with Islamabad is a veritable nightmare to travel on, as can be seen in the accompanying picture.

Due to intense population explosion and concomitant heavy flow of vehicles on the expressway, the decrepit road and bridge infrastructure is on the brink of collapse, especially on the stretch from Gulberg Green to Rawat T Chowk. The building of PWD interchange at a huge cost has rather worsened the situation as the Korang Nullah bottleneck chokes the flow.

According to a field survey by Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), nearly 2,879 light and 212 heavy vehicles choke the Expressway at Koral interchange during peak hours. The absence of end-to-end planning, a holistic infrastructure development vision and tardy project management by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has resulted in a daily traffic gridlock on the expressway with a sorry spectacle of heavy trucks, oil tankers, buses, cars and ambulances stuck in the jams inching ahead cheek by jowl at a snail’s pace. A meagre force of 162 traffic policemen is woefully inadequate to manage this unruly traffic.

Compounding the misery are myriad private housing societies that have cropped up along the expressway where, in the absence of public transport, everyone is compelled to use private transport. The implacable flow of this traffic is increasing at a frightening pace with no ring road to take the flow away from the expressway as is the case in other cities.

The frequent two-way VVIP movements between Rawalpindi and Islamabad add to the misery. The ruling elite need to feel the pain of daily commuters, but they prefer to remain oblivious to the mayhem. It is beyond doubt or debate that the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad need a traffic emergency to address the issues. A placebo approach or routine handling would just not serve the purpose.

Brig (retd) Raashid Wali Janjua
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2022