passengers often stand on the thin median for traffic to pass before walking to the bus stand. One wishes the CM Punjab takes note of this. After all, these bus passengers are as good citizens as the ones travelling and living along the signal-free zone in Gulberg.
As if the odd location of the bus stand was not enough, the Punjab government established an animal market and slaughterhouse within a two-kilometre radius of the bus stand. Now the option to remedy the situation is to add two lanes each on both sides of Multan Road and provide easy access of buses to the bus stand. Improving the main exit and entry routes to the provincial capital is far more important than rebuilding and remodelling already developed neighbourhoods of the sprawling city.
People think the Punjab government is more interested in constructing structures that are visible than developing those whose progress is not that visible or glamorous. For the sake of political point-scoring, widening roads and developing the metro bus and orange line train systems is far more helpful than, say, constructing hospitals or establishing universities.
Nevertheless, the main problem of traffic congestion arises because of the complete failure of the traffic management system. The city’s roads are wide enough but ill-supervised by the traffic staff. A large majority of drivers, educated and uneducated alike, show neither courtesy nor civic sense when driving on the road.
Here’s a daily sight: you’re driving on the canal bank road and suddenly the traffic comes to a halt. A long line of cars builds up. After about twenty minutes, cars begin to creep forward. You realise there was nothing holding up traffic other than an accident that had occurred on the opposite bank and that motorists in front of you had stopped just to watch the spectacle. Many of us seem to have all the time in the world to waste.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore. Email: pinecitygmail.com