When senior government officials had planned to make the entire Canal Road signal-free, they perhaps focused on positive elements only, ignoring the bitter experiences the commuters would face over time.

Although conversion of the 27km major thoroughfare into a signal-free corridor through gradual construction of 11 underpasses and as many intersections from Thokar Niaz Beg to Harbanspura helped the people avoid traffic congestions and reduce travel time, they continued facing some problems -- mainly roadside accidents. People continued to suffer and the government neither made safety arrangements nor does it plan to do so in the near future.

Various sections of the road such as Thokar Niaz Beg to Doctors Hospital underpass/intersections and Dharampura to Harbanspura underpasses and onward are yet to be fenced along both sides of the canal, resulting in speeding vehicles plunging into it everyday. Though a plan for fencing was approved, but the scheme is still incomplete due to the lack of funds and disinterest of the departments concerned.

There was another plan to ensure availability of special squads of the city traffic police along with speed-checking machines, but it could not be materialised due to the reasons best known to the department.

“The Canal Road has really become problematic, as there are frequent accidents here at various sections. The problematic stretches run from Thokar to Campus and up to the Dharampura underpass mainly,” said a traffic warden.

He said the traffic police fines over-speeding commuters heavily to discourage reckless driving, but that has not changed anything. Asked about speed limit for light and heavy transport, the official said 60km and 50km per hour was fixed for light and heavy vehicles, including motorcyclists, respectively, but most of the commuters violated traffic rules.

The department already planned to increase the number of speed-checking teams and ensure their availability at dangerous stretches. He said most victims of accidents were motorcyclists, including one-wheelers. He said street vendors along both sides of the road were also causing accidents and traffic blockades. The official also sought banning entry of heavy transport (goods transport) on the road at all times, except during an emergency.

Talking to Dawn, Ali Nawaz, a spokesman for the traffic police, claimed the department was really concerned about the issue.

“We arranged a public walk on road safety precautionary measures sometime ago. We are also trying to keep our speed-checking teams present on the road most of the time,” he said.

While giving his input on the issue, Jam Sajjad Husain, a spokesman for the Rescue 1122 service, confirmed that most accident-related phone calls they received daily were about Canal Road.

“According to our study, underage drivers are the main cause of accidents on Canal Road. We think an extensive drive should be launched to enforce traffic rules and create awareness among citizens with a focus on using a signal-free corridor,” he said.

The proposal to hold ‘Sasta Bazaars’ on the pattern of Ramazan bazaars daily is being reviewed these days and likely to be approved by the City District Government of Lahore.

The idea was floated to get rid of price hike and give some relief to citizens.

“We believe that our exercise to hold Ramazan bazaars remained successful and we plan to replicate this model throughout the year,” says District Coordination Officer retired Captain Muhammad Usman.

He said the CDGL was setting up bazaars on a weekly basis at Sabzazar, Thokar, Johar Town, Harbanspura and other localities, and wanted to make them a daily feature besides increasing the number of these bazaars in the city. He said once the arrangements were complete, officials would start launching the project.

khalidpak284@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014