Road blocks: CM orders improved traffic management at work sites
Chief Minister (CM) Shahbaz Sharif has directed traffic authorities to improve traffic management at Kalma Chowk and along the Metro Bus Service route, where major construction work on road infrastructure is ongoing.
In a press release about the meeting, the chief minister was quoted as saying that traffic authorities must ensure that traffic keeps moving at the construction sites. He said alternative traffic routes should be drawn up, advertised to the public, and staffed with traffic wardens.
Sharif directed the chief traffic officer to make sure that wardens are stationed at all places where construction work is ongoing so that there are no stoppages. Senior officers should monitor the attendance of traffic wardens and install cameras to record them at work so their performance could be evaluated.
He said boards should be set up at construction sites to warn citizens and other safety measures should also be taken. He said that water should be sprinkled at construction sites to lessen pollution levels. He said that the Punjab government would offer free masks to motorcyclists and cyclists to protect them from dust and pollution at the construction sites.
The CM directed members of the Punjab Assembly to visit the construction sites every day to address traffic problems
MPAs Mehr Ishtiaq Ahmed, Hafiz Mian Muhammad Nauman and Dr Saeed Elahi, the Punjab Police inspector general, the MBS project director, the transport secretary the additional IG (traffic), the commissioner, the district coordination officer and the Lahore Development Authority director general also attended the meeting.
Kalma Chowk underpasses Project Director Khalid Alvi said that work on the approved design was continuing at full speed. He said that the deadline for the project was January 31. He said that the roofs of the underpasses should be finished by mid-December. The approved cost of the project is around Rs1.5 billion.
The two-lane underpass for traffic heading from Garden Town to Gulberg will be around 250 metres long, while the underpass for traffic heading in the other direction will have three lanes and be around 400 metres long.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2012.
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I was impressed when I travelled to Lahore this summer. The city looks transformed with the large number of infrastructure improvements, especially the Ring Road. I think we should all thank the CM of Punjab who has made it the most stable, prosperous and developing province in Pakistan.