‘Design cities for people, not cars’
Traffic congestion in cities like Islamabad is caused by the fundamental problems in the design of the cities, which are designed for cars instead of people, said Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairperson Amer Ali Ahmed.
He was speaking on the second day of the second PIDE-RASTA conference organised by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) on Thursday.
The CDA chairman said that the traffic problems in Islamabad are exacerbated by the horizontal rather than vertical expansion of the city. Due to the design of the city, it is not feasible for the private sector to provide mass transport for the public, he added.
However, the CDA chairperson apprised that is initiating important projects to ease the traffic problems faced by the public at large. He said that new bus routes will be initiated which will connect different parts of the city with the center of the city.
He also mentioned the construction of a parking plaza in the Blue Area, which will ease the parking problem in the area. However, the chairperson said that the people also need to change their mindset. The people want to park right in front of the place they visit, due to which parking plazas remain unused, which is a waste of resources. PIDE, in collaboration with the CDA, is working on a project that will introduce paid parking system in selected parts of Islamabad on a pilot basis.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 3rd, 2022.