Karal Chowk complexities & a simpleton’s solutions

Usually when we plan to travel, like going to village, or some extended sightseeing tour (which at least I can’t recall when I had the opportunity over more than 3 years!), we use to make certain preparations.

Prepare the food basket. Fill up the thermo-flask with tea. Put some dry ration, like cookies, chips and other such junk food items for munching. Make sure to keep enough bottles of water. Check the first-aid box for essential items like Paracetamol, Disprin, bandaids! Check a mat and a comforter in the boot. Go to the gas station. Get the tank topped up. Check the air pressure in tyres. And we are on our way.

These days, those living in the southern part of Islamabad/Rawalpindi beyond Karal Chowk (Airport Chowk) on Islamabad Highway and have to travel ‘down town’ Islamabad for job, education or business have to make almost the same preparations every morning they leave home!

Because, the kind of traffic jams one so frequently gets stuck in, especially in the morning or evening rush hours, one (especially if travelling with family, children) is very much likely to face such an emergency situation where he may need these things.

They are living a stressful life since the government announced to turn this road into a ‘Signal Free Corridor’ about three years ago. In fact the promise is almost fulfilled as there is only one traffic signal left, or are there 2?

But the mess (which indeed was expected) once the construction of the ‘fly-over’ started at the ‘Karal Chowk’ turned out to be beyond anyone’s imagination.

It was expected that the planners and the contractors busy on the project would take into consideration the heavy flow of traffic on this section of the ‘Signal Free Corridor’, particularly at specific bottlenecks like this ‘Karal Chowk’.

Or, at least, I foolishly believed, that they may have learnt a lesson from the experience at ‘Garden Avenue Fly-over’ and would complete the link and slip roads before starting work in the centre.

I believe they have made some of these link and slip roads already. Or, at least the one linking Airport Road with the Islamabad Expressway (Islamabad-bound part) and opened it for traffic flow as well. Or, probably, it is the same old one! 

But these experts seemed to be completely oblivious as to how the traffic going towards airport from Islamabad would be managed?

Very conveniently they created a ‘U-turn’ about a hundred meter ahead of the old intersection, which is now closed for construction.

Result. The traffic clogged as it merged with the flow of traffic coming up from Rawat side, all those trucks moving at snails’ pace, buses, vans and others.

After a few days they closed this ‘U-turn’ and directed those going towards airport side to drive further south and take one existing ‘U-turn’ about a kilometre or more down the road.

Again, the two-lane road with a wide enough shoulder was unable to cope with the heavy load of traffic.

The next day they returned to the earlier ‘U-turn’ and are still continuing with the arrangement.

I really wonder as to why these planners or even the Islamabad Traffic Police, which has indeed been put under a heavy pressure to cope with the situations there because quite a few ‘VVIPs’ drive up and down through this point every day, could not think of a better solution to the problem?

I may absolutely be wrong in my assertions and may have turned a bit ‘loco’, a senile old man, who has lost his mind because of too much stress of travelling on this part of the road for so many long months, turning into years and still there seems to be no end to all this in sight. But I believe there still is a simple solution to this mindboggling problem.

Will this be too much of a problem or complex an issue to divert the traffic driving down from Islamabad, heading towards airport, the vicinity and beyond, to the ‘Gulberg Green Under-pass’ instead of creating temporary ‘U-turns’ anywhere on the highway?

The airport-bound vehicles can very conveniently keep to the left lane, take the loop to the underpass and then re-emerge on the main high-way, again in the left-lane and continue on their way without even slightly interrupting the flow of traffic on the rest of the four lanes.

And obviously the same old request! Can the ITP please regulate the movement of trucks for only four hours a day? If the ITP cannot make these truckers to keep to their lane (like once upon a time the former IG NH&MP Zulfiqaar Cheema proved could be done) then at least they could be controlled by preventing their movement between 7 to 9 a.m and 5 to 7 p.m.

Will these simple measures be too difficult to adopt to make life of thousands of people somewhat easier?