Implementing new Turner Road traffic plan
The steps were taken after a 15-member committee of the Lahore High Court gave its recommendations.
A dozen policemen were deployed to ensure that commuters followed the new traffic plan. Several lawyers got into argument with the police because no vehicle was allowed to enter Turner Road from the Fane Road end. A large number of lawyers have their offices on Fane Road and have to go to Turner Road quite frequently since it runs adjacent to the Lahore High Court. Turner Road is now accessible only from the Mozang Road end.
In 2009, a similar traffic plan –formed after LHC’s suo motu notice to remove encroachments and make traffic flow smooth on Turner Road – failed after lawyers refused to cooperate.
On Wednesday, after the new plan was implemented, police also removed a motorcycle parking in front of the Accountant General’s Office on Turner Road. All vendors, makeshifts shops and photocopy machines, which had been affecting the smooth flow of traffic were also removed from the road.
Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) secretary Babar Murtaza Khan told The Express Tribune that the one-way traffic rule would be implemented “at all costs”, adding that lawyers and litigants would realise that the plan was for their benefit. He said that three policemen and two traffic wardens would remain deployed at the road at all times to avoid traffic jams.
Khan added that two personnel of the Solid Waste Management department would also be deployed at the road to ensure cleanliness and also to check garbage dumps on the road for security purposes. The secretary also said that lawyers could still park their cars on the road, adding that it was only double parking that had been banned. “Police personnel will ensure that the parking guidelines are adhered to,” Khan said.
SP Dr Haider Ashraf told The Express Tribune that the police had started implementing the recommendations of the committee, reiterating Khan’s statement that policemen would be deployed at all times on Turner Road to ensure that a traffic jam does not occur. The SP termed the lawyers a hurdle in implementation of the plan for smooth traffic flow as well as security of the LHC because of their noncooperation. He said this time, president and secretary of the LHCBA had assured the police of the lawyers’ cooperation.
Regarding the SP’s complaint, LHCBA secretary Babar Murtaza Khan said that he had talked to lawyers and added that they had promised cooperation. Khan said that the LHCBA will put up notices at several places on the road requesting lawyers to obey the rules.
On August 25 Justice Hafiz Abdul Rehman Insari had constituted a 15-member committee comprising police officials and lawyers to propose a solution for traffic and security problems on Turner Road.
The committee comprised a member of the LHC inspection team, president and secretary of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, Advocates Muhammad Sharif Khokhar, Anwar Kamal, Alamgir Khan, SP City Traffic, SP Civil Lines and 10 others.
The judge had issued this order in a petition filed by Muhammad Wasil Khan who had submitted that traffic chaos had become a regular feature on Turner Road because no one followed the one-way traffic rule. He had also pointed out that the illegal parking in front of AG Office gate of the LHC presented a security to the high court.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 26th, 2010.
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