Not rocket science

JULY 1999 - There is now a growing belief among those who plan and plot civic affairs that all you require to solve traffic snarls is simply to widen the roads. The rather naïve thinking is that the wider the road, the smoother the traffic. This may win some points if one was compiling the world’s most simplistic solutions, but in terms of a long term and serious solution to the chaos that reigns supreme on our roads in just about all cities and towns, this thinking has just about as much chances of success as selling ice cream to the Eskimos. However, those who do not subscribe to this popular concept are limited in numbers. Everyone seems to think the government has hit upon the perfect formula.

Ever since the Main Boulevard in Lahore’s Gulberg went into overdrive what with trees falling like nine pins and the road simply getting broader and broader at the waist, city planners have been back slapping one another at having forever solved the traffic problem for the elite who frequent this road and were usually put to inconvenience every time they went out for a cone ice cream. Of course there were rumours that the road had received so much attention because the Mian brothers used it almost daily coming and going to the airport (SS has travelled 173 times to Islamabad since the PML came into power !) not to mention Bagh-e-Jinnah and the cricket outings. And they could not suffer the traffic mess, but I think it is nothing of the sort. It’s just a simple solution someone came up with. Ask Asad Jehangir who was once the DIG traffic in Lahore and you’ll get an altogether another answer, but then who’s asking him ? So while the cars whiz at speeds that Schumaker would be rather happy to observe, the desired ‘discipline’ in traffic has been nowhere in evidence.

The best way to get ahead is still from the wrong side, the only difference is that previously you accomplished this tricky feat at 40 mph. You now execute the same maneuver at 80 mph. As for following lanes, using indicators to overtake or get back into lanes, shifting lanes well ahead of turns and other silly moves which are mandatory elsewhere in the world, these are happily absent in Lahore and wherever else the roads are getting wider. At intersections you still play Russian roulette with somnolent cops who when not picking noses are happily parked under a shady tree – not many of those around. As and when you spot one supposedly directing traffic, it is quite regular to catch his attention to find out which way is he directing the traffic to move. Quite often while he faces you square on – and giving you the clear impression that you are to stay put while traffic moves from his left to right or vice versa, don’t be surprised to receive a long glare when you are expected to move and not the other sides. Bewildered motorists and others on the road then open a dialogue of silent and long looks and eventually the penny drops. Moving about in Pakistan is truly a psychic experience.

The arrival of the long awaited buses however has been a great move and why it took so many years one will never know. Firstly it has considerably thinned traffic on the roads where the buses are plying. The suicide squads of mini buses owned, operated and protected by the cops (all loud denials aside) have moved to other hunting grounds. They still are a force to be reckoned with on any day and they are still setting new standards of stunts no one can quite imagine, but they are less and less visible. This means that rather suddenly there is less smoke, less chaos, less accidents and less sardine-packaging. It also means that the cops are losing major revenues but if the people are depressed about it, I haven’t seen it so far. With most buses full up, all seats taken and many still standing, the obvious conclusion is that more are needed. Maybe one day we can all dream about a metro service that will whisk commuters from Defence to the Secretariat in less than five minutes and cars with odd and even numbers will share the week days to get into town and maybe we will have school bus systems that parents can trust so that the one car- one child formula can be at last abandoned and the environment given a fighting chance and our cities a moment of peace.

The irony is that the roads we have – and some are nothing to write home about, are adequate even as they are. What is needed are two or three things to fix the mess. First a strict system of testing and passing applicants who want a license. It used to be very much the norm. Why can’t it be brought back ? Agreed that the Anglo-Indians won’t come back to administer it, but it is not rocket science is it ? Second, introducing traffic laws and signs into the curriculum so that the next lot aren’t lunatics and third actually enforcing the laws so that those violating them are punished and not let off on a phone call or shameless name dropping. (‘Don’t you know who I am?’ – the famous line uttered by every Pakistani who violates the law with impunity.) How this can be done is less costly and more effective than making a sixty foot wide road, hundred feet wide. But then it is less dramatic, less visible and frankly too much trouble. The irony is that the traffic, beset as it is with numerous problems that defy solutions can still be tackled and it doesn’t require a Mao or Hitler to do it. It is simple but it needs a will and a vision and both are rather short these days.