Signal-free: No underpass, but flyover for Mehran Hotel intersection

The traffic police is not happy about this development.

KARACHI:

The city government has decided that it will build a flyover and not an underpass at the problematic Mehran Hotel intersection on Shahrah-e-Faisal.

“The main problem is that we found 45 lines for water and sewage etc and they are so old that they won’t be able to take the cranes,” explained Karachi Metropolitan Corporation spokesperson Ali Hassan Sajid after he accompanied the new administrator, Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, on a visit Saturday. He added that they did not think it would be possible to stop traffic which would be required if they built an underpass, the original plan. He insisted that building a flyover would not disrupt traffic as the piles would be driven into the green belt after being put together off site.

The traffic police have not been happy about this development and neither were the sensitive installations around the area. Ansar Zaidi, a KMC engineer who just retired, had shuttled back and forth in meetings with the V Corps over their concerns for the proposed underpass at Mehran Hotel. Security concerns ranked high. But Zaidi warned that intersection will become a nightmare if something is not done now. “Aap ko itni pareshani hogi ke tabiat theek ho jaegi,” he had told The Express Tribune earlier on in November. The administrator also inspected worked on the four flyovers on Shahrah-e-Pakistan for a signal-free corridor.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2013.