LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) workers on The Mall to “court arrests” and closure of the Gaddafi Stadium to review security of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) matches to be held there, threw the traffic out of gear on different city arteries, forcing the motorists to spend hours on roads before reaching their destinations.
Particularly, major arteries including the Main Ferozepur Road near Kalma Chowk, Liberty Roundabout and Gulberg’s Main Boulevard remained clogged when the police closed down the roads to the Gaddafi Stadium to review security measures for the upcoming PSL cricket matches.
For motorists and other commuters, the Gaddafi Stadium road has been the only route for the traffic coming from either sides of the Ferozpur Road since the construction work at Kalma Chowk started. Many commuters were also using a road passing through the construction site at Kalma Chowk to enter Gulberg from Ferozpur Road, but it was too narrow to bear the burden of the heavy traffic flow.
The traffic wardens have been managing the situation by splitting the traffic, suggesting motorists to use the road passing through the stadium to avoid inconvenience.
However, on Wednesday, when the police closed down the both entry points to the stadium – from Ferozepur Road as well as Liberty Chowk – without any prior public information, hundreds of motorists got stuck in the traffic for several hours, many of them forced to use the narrow Kalma Chowk route.
Even those who were on motorbikes also had to spent hours on roads to reach their destinations using the same route.
Some of the the witnesses say the traffic wardens, rarely available to guide motorists, asked them to use the narrow lanes in the residential areas of Gulberg, which were already packed with traffic, compounding their misery.
They say most of the motorists were reluctant to use the roads along the city canal to cross the Ferozepur Road because of the PTI’ workers gathering there.
The situation forced many of the motorists to take long Walton Road route, the witnesses say, deploring the “failed” traffic management plan, if there was any.
The situation was also not much better on The Mall and in its surroundings where the PTI workers put up a show following the call of Imran Khan for courting arrests.
The heavy deployment of police and closure of all the roads leading to The Mall for security reasons put enormous traffic burden on already busy Lytton Road, Jain Mandir Chowk, Old Anarkali area (Nabha Road, Food Street, Rabbani Road) Chowburji, Devis Road, Jail Road, Mozang, Lower Mall, etc.
Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2023
