The Punjab government prides itself on the myriad road infrastructure projects that it has launched in the city of Lahore. Unfortunately, the 40 (that’s the official figure!) flyovers and underpasses, built over time, have done little to help the traffic snarl-ups that are still to be seen at various junctures.

The much-tomtommed Jail Road signal-free corridor, for instance, has proved to be one strange freeway. The double road receives traffic from Cantonment on the one side and, on the other, ejects a heavy vehicular flow from Jail Rd and Main Boulevard, Gulberg via Sherpao Bridge on to the Abid Majeed Road-Shami Road cross-street.

In order to ease the flow of traffic that is coming down from Main Blvd, a flyover was recently constructed around the Siddiq Trade Centre. As grand as the one-way bridge looks from afar, especially during night time, under the dim blue lights, it does the Cantt-ward bound traffic no good by bringing it to a sudden halt, at this checkpost around the Go-Go Market.

You can spot the endless queues of cars and other vehicles a mile off. The gridlock often lasts up to 40 minutes, depending what time of the day it is.

Reports suggest that this stretch of Jail Rd caters to 0.2-0.3 million vehicular volume in rush hours (school and office timings). Add to it the 0.1 million vehicular flow that Main Blvd, Gulberg, oozes out on the road.

Before the signal-free corridor was created, there would be bottlenecks on precisely three points in the area -- the Canal crossing, the Zafar Ali Road exit to Jail Rd, and the Fawara Chowk at Siddiq Trade Centre. Being home to a number of educational institutions, public and private hospitals, recreational spots and government offices, the roads in the area would become clogged routinely.

The signal-free corridor was built, with a budget of staggering Rs1.5 billion, as if this was the only solution to the commuters’ woes. Work on the government’s mega project was executed within the shortest possible time. Sadly, it lacked planning and it is showing.

Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA) director Mazhar Husain disagrees. "Ninety-five percent vehicular moment has been successfully streamlined," he tells TNS.

Hussain predicts that the traffic situation on the abovementioned checkpost in Cantonment "shall improve once the Shami Rd widening project is completed (at the cost of Rs2.7 billion).

Previously, the City Traffic Police (CTP) and TEPA identified 20-odd bottlenecks as mentioned in the Master Plan 2021. These included Chowk Taxali, Chowk Chauburji, Dubai Chowk, Do Moria Pul, Chowk Yateem Khana, Scheme Morr, Canal Bridge, Lakshami Chowk, Regal Chowk, Allah Hu Chowk, and Dharampura Chowk.

Traffic Planner Mustafa Khan, who recently worked with the construction company that played a vital role as an outsourced partner of LDA, is of the view that the flyover at Siddiq Trade Centre is losing its utility: "It does not make sense that the traffic that’s going smoothly [on the flyover] should suddenly end up in a bottleneck."

Khalid Ali, a businessman, expresses his dismay at the traffic spillover at the said cross-street. "Earlier, it would take me 50 minutes at the maximum to get to my home in Cantt from my workplace. Today, thanks to the traffic pileup, my travelling time has increased to almost an hour and half," he says.

On the other hand, Chief Traffic Officer’s stance remains that as soon as the sun goes up, traffic in Lahore starts playing havoc with you. "Some say it is due to the poor traffic management system while others think it is due to the growing number of cars on the roads. I’d say both reasons are valid."

Talking about the Orange Line, he says, "[It] should help to decrease the number of private vehicles [on the roads]. We still need more bridges and flyovers. The people should be educated about traffic issues and how to resolve them. The number of private vehicles must be brought down."