Quetta traffic problem

As cars and motorbikes multiply the nation’s cities, often with arterial infrastructure that has not been much updated since Independence, are a traffic nightmare. Karachi is a polluted and seemingly endless jam, Lahore is currently choking in a smog that is part down to traffic and part down to unregulated industrialisation — and now the police in Quetta are getting to grips with the traffic. There is to be an e-challan system and tighter and timelier action taken against those violating traffic laws. The burgeoning education industry contributes twice a day to the chaos — as it does virtually everywhere — and the ban on heavy vehicles entering the city before is being strictly enforced. Of particular note is the installation of 33 ‘spikes’ on various roads. There are a crude but effective way of ensuring that traffic flows in the desired direction. No figures are available as to how many cars or trucks had their tyres shredded before the message was received and understood.

The traffic police have a thankless task. They are usually undermanned and under-resourced, work in the midst of the worst of the carbon-monoxide emissions that go with their duty stations and are rarely thanked for anything. Traffic management systems — defining lanes and creating islands to aid flow — are improving, but items such as traffic lights at busy complex junctions are something of a puzzle to drivers unused to such regulation as motorists in Bahawalpur have recently discovered. This is one of those problems that are perennial. It is never going to go away and it is never going to be definitively fixed once and for all. That said a small pat on the back is in order for the traffic police in Quetta and yes, more of those spikes sounds like a good idea. Carry on!

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2017.

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