Murad Ali Shah orders preparation of new plan to resolve traffic issues

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that traffic jams and poor flow traffic flow on different important roads of the city during rush hours are the manifestation of poor traffic planning and management; therefore, a new plan to manage traffic in Saddar, Metropole, Clifton and II Chundrigar Road is the need of the hour.

This is why this meeting has been convened to work out a plan to adopt new traffic management methods so that traffic jams and inconvenience to the public could be avoided, he said, while presiding over a meeting on traffic management in the city at the CM House on Wednesday.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Local Government Nasir Shah, Adviser on Law Murtaza Wahab, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shahlwani, Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Nabi Memon, DIG Traffic Javed Maher, PD Karachi Package Khalid Masroor and Baber Sani.

The commissioner gave a presentation to the chief minister in which different options of one-way traffic, removal of traffic signals and installation of new signals were suggested.

The chief minister said that merely declaring Club Road as one-way was not enough and would not provide solution to the problem. “We will have to adopt a holistic approach by removing traffic congestion and traffic jams from the entire areas, right from II Chundgrigar Road to Shaheen Complex, Shaheen Complex to Fuwara Chowk, Fuwara Chowk to Metropole corner towards Sharea Faisal and towards Clifton and at Avari Towers.”

Shah said there was the option of one-way traffic on different roads. He said the choking points at Metropole, Avari and II Chundrigar Road had to be removed with best traffic engineering. The construction of flyover and underpasses was not appropriate solutions, he said.

He said that from Shaheen Complex there were two roads leading to Fawara Chowk and both the roads -- Governor House Road and PIA office road -- had been allowed to carry two-way traffic; therefore, both the roads remained choked during rush hours. Similarly, traffic coming from Fuwara Chowk and Saddar got choked at Avari.

Some of the issues discussed at the meeting included: why traffic from Shaheen Complex to Avari via Fuwara Chowk and Saddar towards Avari had been allowed to create mayhem at Avari and Metropole Hotel; why some traffic of Saddar could not be diverted towards the Army Selection Centre towards Sharea Faisal from the Regent Plaza side; and why traffic coming from Fuwara Chowk was not allowed to go directly towards Clifton without moving around Metropole.

A separate presentation was given by Project Director Karachi Package Khalid Masroor and Baber Sani and they discussed different plans.

Finally, it was decided that the commissioner, the additional IG Karachi, the DIG Traffic and Kahlid Masroor that engineering bureau chief would visit the entire area to assess the situation of traffic and study roads which could be made one way and what other option could be adopted to remove unnecessary traffic diversions and congestion.

Shah gave three months to the team to not only work out a feasible plan of traffic management but also implement it from June 2020 when schools were closed for summer vacations.