Weekly car bazaars a hassle for residents

Informal roadside markets add to noise pollution, deter people from daily business

RAWALPINDI:

With all the prime parking already claimed by cars waiting to be sold, the public faces a tough choice: either park illegally or drive around in circles until someone vacates a spot.

The federal capital’s twin, Rawalpindi, offers its residents a daily struggle to find parking along with choked traffic and a din of car horns. Fridays and Sundays are the worst as they are the designated days for the ‘car bazaar’, as per a few who inhabit the city. To illustrate, an area of roughly 1.5 km from Chandni Chowk to Faizabad witnesses the spectacle of jammed traffic on these two days.

Tired of witnessing this every week, Muhammad Sultan, a resident of the area, decided to move. “I have lived here nearly all my life and there is no chance of leaving the house on Fridays and Sundays,” he said. Sultan informed that anyone could set up shop on whatever part of the road they wanted and wait for the heavy influx of customers looking to purchase a vehicle. “Moving to the Harley Street area away from that cacophony of cars and customers brought me and my family so much peace,” he added. 

It is not just the residents who are tired of the weekly car bazaar, other traders who make their living in the area are fed up too. Idrees Ahmed and Asghar Sohail, who both own shops here, while talking to The Express Tribune said that doing business on Friday and Sunday was next to impossible.

“Not only do they park cars on the service road from Chandni Chowk to Double Road, but they also occupy all the sidewalks meant for pedestrians as well,” they lamented. The for-sale cars both by dealers and private owners are a big blow to their businesses as they deter shoppers from visiting. 

Read Chaotic traffic

The hospitals that fall in this car-selling route are unfortunate victims as well. Sartaj Abbasi and Haider Ali, drivers of an ambulance for the Benazir Bhutto General Hospital for the last 15 years, informed that this weekly car market is a huge inconvenience in emergencies. “Ambulances get stuck in this particular area on Sundays and Fridays and no matter how loud our emergency horn is the people carry on without paying much heed to make way for us,” they said.

Even on days when the buy and sell car-meet does not happen, showroom owners park their car inventory on sidewalks and occupy parking spots meant for the public. A visibly frustrated Sharif Qureshi, resident of Sadiqabad, while talking to The Express Tribune said, “no one can solve this problem, we the residents are tired of petitioning the traffic police administration even if action is taken against someone, they are parked in the same spot next day.”

Raja Amir, chairman of the Showroom Car Dealers Association, denied that the parking and traffic troubles were down to them. He said, “We have been doing business here for decades and vehicles are restricted to Service Road. These allegations of parking anywhere on the road are baseless. Showroom owners do not do that, the citizens who come to see the vehicles do.” Amir suggested the police should fine these car shoppers heavily to deter them from parking anywhere as the showroom dealers could not ask potential customers to park elsewhere.

Showroom Union leaders Malik Pervez and Javed Malik, while talking with Express Tribune said It was not their fault that the population had grown, and roads had become narrower due to encroachments. “The best solution is to designate one or two kanals of land to showroom dealers in another part of the city to restrict their consumer base to that area,” they proposed.

The Rawalpindi Traffic Police confirmed that this was a persistent problem and they had to deploy additional wardens to fine people. Similarly, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Municipal Corporation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said operations were being carried out on Murree Road showroom areas to remove sidewalk encroachments. “However, it is not our responsibility to end showrooms,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2021.