Green lights for a Green Line

Karachi is a graveyard of mass transit transport systems’ proposals few of which have left the drawing board. The latest to get approval — and quite possibly a project that will actually reach the operational stage — is a revised version of the Green Line bus rapid transit proposal and the cost of this wonder of modern transportation has been raised by a whopping 52 per cent to Rs24.6 billion. It will be recalled that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had already inaugurated the Green Line BRT in February of this year, something of a case of putting the cart before the horse.

The project is to run from Surjani Town and reach into the business district of Saddar with funding to come from Federal pockets — which ought to mean that the Sindh government will be giving it wholehearted support. That support falls into the ‘definite maybe’ category as doubts have been raised in the recent past as to the competence of the Sindh government to run a complex project such as a BRT and, crucially, will it be able to bear the operational costs? Other BRT projects notably in Lahore and the Islamabad-Rawalpindi line are heavily subsidised, and it is yet to be explained the level of subsidy and for how many years the Sindh government is prepared to underwrite the project. There are still unresolved problems with the alignment of the route and the regulatory bodies necessary for the administration of the project are still works-in-progress. Questions have also been raised — as elsewhere that BRT projects have been developed — as to the environmental impact, and Karachi is going to be losing trees that it can ill-afford to lose.

With an expected footfall of up to 300,000 passengers a day when fully operational there is not a shadow of a doubt that the Green Line BRT will be fulfilling a long-unmet need for Karachi, the principal trading hub of the country. Assuming the above questions are answered satisfactorily, political hurdles notwithstanding, then Karachi will finally get its mass-transit system. Thirty years late perhaps, but better late than never.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2016.

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