Sharae Faisal is one of Karachi's main arteries. During rallies, protests and rush hour it is usually jam packed with cars, motorcycles and trucks stuck bumper-to-bumper. A couple of years ago, former city mayor Mustafa Kamal had come up with the Sharae Faisal elevated expressway project to ease the traffic flow.
The project - which connects Quaidabad near the National Highway to the Jinnah Bridge, was abandoned due to the city's unstable law and order situation but has recently revived by the Sindh government with the objective to end traffic congestion on the main thoroughfare of the city.
According to the data collected by NED University, at least 0.1 million vehicles pass through the Sharae Faisal every day which suggests that there was a need to figure out a way for a smoother traffic flow.
"The Sharae Faisal elevated expressway is the most suitable answer for the traffic issues," said Prof Mir Shabbar Ali, the chairperson of the Urban and Infrastructure Engineering department at NED University. "During peak hours, it is difficult to handle the traffic and mind the regulations. The Elevated expressway will help with that. It will also be useful when the Bus Rapid Transport system is in place."
Karachi Administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui said it was imperative for the project to be completed as soon as possible.
"The $300 million expressway project was abandoned earlier due to the political and financial situation," he said. "The project must be carried out to the end." He added that the project's financial assessment will be finalised in a month or two while the environmental assessment had already been carried out during Kamal's tenure.
"Once work on the project starts, it will be completed within a year," he said while talking to The Express Tribune. "We will not change the design of the project which was proposed earlier by the City District Government Karachi.
The expressway, according to Farooqui, will go over Maulvi Tamizzuddin Khan Road, Club Road and Sharae Faisal to Quaidabad bridge. He said that the expressway will relieve congestion on Sharae Faisal and provide a link between Karachi port and Port Qasim. He added that in other countries, elevated expressways had solved traffic problems similar to the one faced in the city on Sharae Faisal.
Karachi Metropolitan Corporation's Niaz Ahmed Soomro, said that the required Environment Impact Assessment had already been carried out by consultants. He added that the adverse affects were minor.
Not the answer
According to architect and urban planner Arif Hasan, the construction of these elevated expressways was not good for the environment and if they went ahead with the project, it would not do much.
"Right now I am stuck in traffic at Sharae Faisal near Jinnah hospital," he said while talking to The Express Tribune. He added that, expressways had not solved any problems in cities where traffic was worse than Karachi.
"Dubai, which is the nearest to us in terms of geography, is grid-locked for six to eight hours a day," he said. "No country in the developed world today could ever dream of building an expressway to their city centres because of the environmental impact and aesthetic degradation ." He added that San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seoul and Paris had demolished their expressways and turned them into public space or residential areas.
Sindh Information and Local Bodies Minister Sharjeel Memon could not be reached for comments.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2014.
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