Saturday, August 18, 2007

Good News For Karachi's Roads

I read a report in Dawn's Karachi section today that made me rejoice. The Supreme Court, bless its heart, has told the city authorities to bar the entry of trucks during the day. Keep in mind that there is nothing prohibiting the movement of heavy vehicles within the city - it is only the case that trucks will not be allowed in between the hours of 6 am and 11 pm. If you are familiar with Karachi's traffic, this qualifies as good news. The traffic in this city is insane. My dad told me the other day that there are apparently 400 new cars on Karachi's roads every day. When you combine that with the lack of a viable public transport system, the digging up of roads for construction purposes, and the complete lack of civic sense, you can get some idea of how hellish it is to drive here. Hopefully this SC order might help a little bit.

3 comments:

Hira said...

hope it does....but to be honest nothing has ever changed in pakistan ...not exactly for the betterment.....

Anonymous said...

Around 10 years ago, after having to deal with a road traffic jam in an Outer London street during morning rush hour caused by some idiot continental driver in a huge juggernaut, I was enraged enough to write to the minister in the Dept. of Transport reminding them that even the Romans did not allow delivery carts during daylight hours in their city streets and that we should have similar traffic regulations.

A ministry flunkie wrote back "it would cost too much for people receiving deliveries to keep staff on during night time."

Ahsan said...

even bloomberg is planning on taxing incoming traffic into manhattan. dont know if it well get through the new york state legislature but he's trying.