Karachi mass transit concerns

Karachi has had several failed attempts at an effective and extensive mass transit system. Its railway system was retired in 1975, through impressively surviving since Independence. Then, it saw the formation of the Karachi Transport Corporation, which, after continuing to lose money without any other achievement mentionable to its name, was privatised 20 years later. Since then, the only operational entity has been what is referred to as the ‘transport mafia’, which operates limited routes that are often irregular, untimely, overcrowded, and neglect to follow any traffic safety rule. It has catered only to those who find difficulty in affording safer or private methods of transport. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, which has subsets of five different bus lines funded by various public and private entities domestic and international, is now the upcoming focus and was extensively discussed at the 4thInternational Karachi Conference. However, looking at the history of failures and the government’s general inability to plan and therefore effectively execute infrastructure blueprints, the pending project will need to take flight before Karachiites become firm believers.

While urban developers emphasise that the BRT is a “public transport improvement project” as opposed to an infrastructure development one, the former cannot be successful without developers paying attention to the latter. Infrastructure development needs to happen in the way of safer roads and strictness in implementing traffic laws. Clearly demarcated lanes, speed limits, heavy fines and licence confiscation for vehicle operators who choose to ignore traffic laws minor and major would make great strides in this regard. While it is commonplace to see motorcycles travelling the wrong way, it is not uncanny to observe larger vehicles such as public buses and school vans doing the same. The BRT is indubitably required for Karachi as the road network is too narrow and dilapidated to support the exponentially increasing number of vehicles, but critical attention needs to be paid to urban infrastructure; development needs to happen synergistically with other departments in order to extract the best use from such a major bus transportation system.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2016.

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