The city administration and civic agencies’ lack of planning, coordination and thought into multi-million road project have added to the woes of commuters.
The newly built Rashid Minhas Road is a classic example of the ill-planning by Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and city administration. Four U-turns and several medians, at short intervals on the 1.5 kilometres long Rashid Minhas Road, between Marrir Chowk and District Court Chowk in the garrison city, cause a traffic mess on the busy Benazir Bhutto (formerly Murree) Road with long queues of vehicles stranded for hours.
Road Traffic Engineering department was not to be seen anywhere during the mess; the department stays aloof while Punjab Chief Minister’s Rawalpindi Development Works Monitoring Committee was also unmoved over the issue.
More than Rs90 million were spent from Chief Minister’s special grant on the widening and metalling of the road. The project was near completion but the road engineering department of RDA built four huge road-dividers which have failed the project.
The dividers build in front of Jhanda Chowk, Marrir Hassan Chowk, Wapda Office and Secretary RTA office cause accidents while commuters have also raised concerns over the U-turns as well, maintaining that they were a waste of funds and space.
“The road has been made zig-zag and it is also extremely narrow at some points,” said Muhammad Younus, a commuter.
He also addend that putting a traffic signal on the road was beyond thought. While the newly renovated road had already showed craters on it and the manholes were not properly covered posing dangers to bikers and cars.
“City Traffic Police were not consulted before finalising of the project, otherwise traffic problems could have been avoided,” said Dr Azam, the Chief Traffic Officer Rawalpindi. Malik Shakeel Awan and other elected representatives of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said they had directed the authorities concerned to plug the faults as complaints were being received.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2011.
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