For smoother traffic, burden must end on lone business district

Karachi
For a sustainable transportation system in Karachi, it is essential to avoid the centralisation and overdevelopment of the central business district and develop new urban areas and urban fringe areas constructing multiple business areas.
This will help decentralise the urban functions and will keep a dynamic balance between work and residential areas.
Karachi is basically a mono-centric city where a large proportion of activities are carried out in the central business district resulting in a great mismatch between jobs and residence locations.
The multiple centres should be developed on the principles of smart growth which requires balance between job and residence locations and connection of local centres by multiple traffic modes with large capacity transit systems as optimal modes.
Besides, an integrated transport and land use plan will also help maximise the urban transportation system efficiency. Transport accessibility alters people’s travel behaviour and land use intensity. The absence of integrated transport and land use planning means that development projects are implemented by various departments without taking into account urban ecological systems, resources, and social and economic factors. Different city structures (land use patterns) need different transportation systems. The planning should aim at maximising the urban transport system efficiency for the environmental and resource constraints.
A dynamic relationship between the city structure and the urban transportation systems will help maximise social benefits and sustainable development.
These were among the suggestions in a study conducted on Karachi’s existing transportation and infrastructure system, national transportation policies, and urban transportation projects to determine if the current paradigm is moving toward or away from sustainable transportation.
The study, titled “Urban Transport and Sustainable Transport Strategies: A Case Study of Karachi, Pakistan”, was conducted by Intikhab Ahmed Qureshi and LU Huapuon of the Institute of Transportation Engineering, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
The uncontrolled growth in urbanisation and motorisation generally contributes to an urban land use and transportation system that is socially, economically, and environmentally unsustainable.
Karachi, the largest urban and economic centre of Pakistan, is passing through an uncontrolled phase of rapid urbanisation and motorisation.

Transit-oriented development
The other suggestions include promoting public transport and transit oriented development. Recent efforts to ease traffic congestion by building wider roads, flyovers, and elevated expressways are unlikely to ease traffic congestion in the long run because these initiatives are not linked to social and environmental land-use planning and the transport needs of the non-car owning majority. Sustainable development of the urban transportation system needs to place a priority on the development of an integrated urban transport system with public transport as the core. Therefore, transit-oriented development which prefers a compact mixed community structure with transit station as the core will improve transit ridership and support the main pillars of sustainable development, i.e., economic growth, environmental protection and social diversity in the community.
Integration and coordination of road and rail transport operators is essential for the Karachi transport system.

Transport operators
The city has already suffered from the absence of rail- based urban transport, as the Karachi Circular Railway has remained inoperative for many years due to the lack of riders, the low level of service, and the absence of an integrated bus service routes to shuttle travellers back and forth between KCR stations, their homes, and their place of work.

Low transport fares
The rail-based mass transit system for Karachi will be built using a BOT scheme. Without major government subsidies, the fares will be too high for the poorest segment of Karachi to pay the fares. Therefore, a sustainable funding source must be identified to give subsidies to the poorest segment of the population.

Laws and policies
Urban transportation policies should be formulated to clarify the status of transport financing sources, transport planning principles, rights to roads, operation and management of transport systems, and other transport-related issues. Enforcement of transportation laws in collaboration with education would promote the use of public transport.

Restraining car use
Karachi’s transport development projects can be made successful by managing the rapidly increasing number of private cars through congestion pricing, area licensing schemes, cordon pricing and high parking fees in the central business district. These schemes have been successfully implemented in Singapore, Hong Kong, and London.
Such schemes restrict the over use of cars and help mitigate traffic congestion and pollution and enhance quality of life and improve public transit use in the business district.

Non-motorised transport network
Non-motorised transport is an energy efficient, environmentally friendly transport mode that can play a significant role in urban mobility. In Karachi the security and safety issues, poorly maintained pedestrian paths and the absence of a separate right of way for bicyclists have made this mode unattractive among commuters. However, providing non-motorised transport related facilities such as sidewalks, crosswalks, well-timed crossing signals, street lighting, and dedicated bicycle lanes can revive this mode for commuting and other activities as the majority of the population in Karachi is poor.

Sustainable transportation
The adoption of the principles of sustainable transportation has become more important in Karachi, where the inefficient public transportation system and rising incomes have stimulated the demand for personal mobility with increased automobile ownership and use.
Growing motorisation combined with inadequate traffic management strategies, an aging and ill-maintained vehicle stock and inadequate land use and transportation planning has all led to a significant level of traffic congestion resulting in longer travel times, additional fuel consumption, high pollution levels and a deteriorating urban environment that has a direct bearing on sustainable development.
The concept of sustainable development and sustainable transportation systems can be understood by exploring their evolution. In the 18th century economist and philosopher Thomas Malthus hypothesized that improvements in the quality of life would stimulate population surges that would outpace increases in the means of subsistence.
The term sustainable development was first used by World Conservation Strategy in 1980 to emphasise the significance of resource conservation without which humanity has no future.
Sustainable transportation is an expression of sustainable development in the transport sector. A review of the literature has shown a growing emphasis on developing sustainable transportation systems as well as policy-oriented studies to address transportation-related negative externalities such as air and noise pollution, accidents, congestion and social exclusion and to meet current and future mobility and accessibility needs without creating excessive negative externalities. The reviews also established that sustainable transportation systems require a dynamic balance between the main pillars of sustainable development, i.e., environmental protection, social equity, and economic efficiency for current and future generations
Balancing of the various economic, social, and environmental factors is difficult so various attempts have been made to list indicators that may assist examination of the sustainability of transportation systems.
However, one deficiency in the literature seems to be the lack of consensus on which policies or initiatives will result in a sustainable transportation system, while another deficiency is the lack of social aspects/indicators because of a lack of knowledge and of techniques for assessing the social impact of transportation system changes.
Urban development
Karachi is characterised by an accelerating rate of suburban growth. Its growth rate has been phenomenal. The city has seen a 35-fold increase in its population and an almost 16-fold increase in its spatial expansion since the emergence of Pakistan.
According to the 1998 census, the density of different areas varies from the central city (33 014 persons/km) to the outskirts (433 persons/km). Karachi is basically a mono-centric city where over 70 percent of the business services and about half of the retail trade and personal services are located in the central business district. About 50 percent of the employment in the wholesale trade and transport sector is in the central business district.
Rapid population growth and spatial expansion have led to a sharp increase in demand for urban transport facilities and services as the densification and spatial expansion have occurred with no development planning. Since 1949 five development plans have been prepared for Karachi, but never implemented. As a consequence, the city suffers from a chronic shortage of basic facilities like dwelling units, water supply, electricity, and public transport. The shortage of dwelling units has been largely responsible for the emergence of squatter settlements. At present, about 55 percent of the total population resides in these squatter settlements.
The socio-economic and environmental conditions in these settlements are dismal with the majority of these squatter settlements located far from the major job markets. The residents of these areas are poor and are captive riders of limited and low quality public transport services.

Infrastructure systems
The increased urbanization and economic growth in the city has put a tremendous pressure on travel demands. The increased demand has quickly filled the roadway infrastructure as about 33 percent of all motorised vehicles in the country throng on its roads and expressways.
In 2002, the total registered vehicles and cars were growing at twice the growth rate of the population while the vehicle fleet is dominated by cars and motorcycles, which account for 92 percent of the vehicles as compared to six percent for para-transit vehicles and two percent for public transport vehicles.
This rapid rise in personal vehicle ownership and the lack of economic instruments, such as charged parking and road pricing, has led to enormous congestion especially in the central part of the city which increases the average commute travel time in Karachi by over 45 minutes.