Another metro project

Orange Line in Lahore may complement Metro Bus service but it is time other provinces also replicated such projects.

Pakistan and China have signed an agreement to set up another mass-transit project this time in Lahore. It is to be a train line, 27.1km in length, to be called the ‘Orange Line’ and it is to cost $1.27 billion. Interaction with our Chinese neighbour and increasingly our economic partner, are at a high water mark. The China-Pakistan economic corridor is to be fast-tracked and there are expectations that China will be closely engaged in reviving the almost moribund Gwadar project, possibly underwriting a road and rail link northwards to Kashgar in southern China. All this is good news indeed and we welcome the possibility of further improvements in transport infrastructure — but there are caveats.

Thus far the mega-transport projects of this government are to the benefit of the people of Punjab. Where is the mass-transit project for Karachi? Has the talk of the revival of the Circular Railway vanished into thin air? The city is the economic powerhouse of the country and we would have thought that its obvious needs in terms of mass-transit systems would have merited the most urgent attention by the PML-N government. Quetta would also doubtless benefit from an upgrade to its transport systems and so would have Peshawar, a city that struggles with congested arteries. There are inflated claims as to the number of jobs that the new metro system will generate; and no metro system anywhere in the world is worth the cost of its construction unless it is plugged into efficient subsidiary road and rail systems.

There is very real public anger in both Islamabad and Rawalpindi at the disruption that the construction of the Metro Bus project is causing there, with obvious damage to the ‘green’ infrastructure in Islamabad and a life of utter chaos and misery for those living and working along the route in Rawalpindi. The Orange Line in Lahore may complement the Metro Bus service — which is currently receiving mixed reviews — and we hope that it is indeed an economic engine, but it is time the other provinces also replicated such projects.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.