Lahore, with its huge population, is facing severe transportation problems. Rather than improving the existing public transport infrastructure, the focus of the government is on starting new ventures: roads, Metro Bus Service, and other rapid mass transit plans. These projects are being opposed by civil society groups because they are damaging the landscape of the city and destroying its heritage.
Urban planners and civil society groups have criticised the Punjab government for ignoring alternative plans to improving public transport. Currently, there are 33 bus routes and 44 van routes in Lahore, with an estimated population of more than 10 million.
Reza Ali, prominent urban planner, tells TNS that the train project was made around 2005 and was finally adopted by the government in 2009. "Initially, it was a four-lane project but its first lane was converted into Metro Bus Service. Orange Line is the second one and then there are green and yellow lines," he says, adding, "Primarily, the line was supposed to be 7.1 kilometre underground and the rest on the ground but later, when the Chinese told Pakistani government to build infrastructure, giving 500m USD, the government reduced the underground route."
He maintains that the underground route of the Orange Line was much better than the new plan and that the government should go back to it as an alternative. Secondly, he says, cut-and-cover technique is very old now and there are modern ways to make tunnels. "Projects like Orange Line are very important and critical but the way the government is doing it is very destructive," he says.
According to officials in the Punjab Transport Department, the government, in 1998, appointed international consultants to review the existing transport system and suggest alternative measures to bring significant improvements in it. The government later revised policies and strategies aimed at promoting the development of bus industry, together with supporting reforms in the licensing and regulation of urban bus services.
A variety of bus services, including some air-conditioned buses to be operated by private companies, was supposed to be introduced.
A study of University of Engineering and Technology Lahore’s urban planning department highlights the core problem for Pakistani cities in the way of developing public transport systems.
For at least 60 years, public transport policy makers have formulated policies for public transport development in Pakistan. These policies make little sense in the presence of an extensive suburban railways infrastructure and high density mixed land use in urban areas.
Amna Majeed, a Lahore-based urban designer, has come up with alternative ideas for keeping heritage sites on the development plan’s route safe. She has formed a group of architects to suggest alternative means to the government regarding recently started Orange Line.
"The reason we started thinking on these lines is that only a few people, with placards, protesting from time to time cannot resist a strong political will," she says, adding, ‘We must realise that we cannot stop it this way. So, we have to suggest some alternative plans, too."
She says they have held meetings with relevant officials and are looking at their plans so that they can discuss them and suggest alternatives. Chief of the civil work department also attended one of the meetings, saying if there is a better plan, the government would be very happy to work on it. "The aim is that we should make projects that are an asset rather than a nuisance."
She believes the Orange Line, at the moment, has two problems --destruction of heritage sites and old British architecture. "We are suggesting how we can stop the Orange Line from passing close to Chauburgi and the General Post Office building and avoiding destruction of some old parts of the city, like Jane Mandir, etc."
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She suggests there should be a substitute for "cut and cover" strategy for making the underground part of the train route. Cut-and-cover or Cut-and-fill is a technique in which the land is not deeply dug and while making a pit at a certain depth, it is covered with steel or building a roof. "Cut-and-fill" is a wrong strategy because they will be digging land and making temporary roofs that would have risks and would be useless later on," she says.
"The best alternative is to make tunnels rather than digging. It would save buildings and heritage," she says.
The obvious implications of the expansion in city size and population have been the massive increase in the intensity of land use and the demand for transport facilities and services.
A senior official at government’s Lahore Transport Company, tells TNS that, currently, transport is a facility for commuters and not a service. "It will become a service when we add a large number of buses and commuters get service every five minutes."
He says the LTC has plans to run more buses and take the number up to 2000 in coming years. At the moment, the number of buses plying on the roads of Lahore by different companies is 450 and LTC is working as a regulator.