my  block

where uzairs roam

Man, it’s good to be back home. Forsooth, Chicago/New York/London/Paris have their own charms, but there’s no city like Islamabad. When I visited in February this year, I felt a little depressed: Islamabad seemed jaded, the colours worn out and the lifestyle routine. Spring had just sprung when I visited in May, so the colours were creeping back and life was picking up again. (Ever since I moved to London, away from my college friends and into the horrible weather, I’ve been constantly reminded how much weather can impact one’s mood. The monotonous grey that overtakes England for more than half the year might well explain why the English ventured forth and conquered half the world.)

During my last visit, I realised that Islamabad is slowly changing into a full-blown city. The green belts that were the defining characteristic of the city are being sacrificed to the snaking traffic that infests the city, and trees are making way for asphalt. Just about every service road (including the one directly in front of our house) is being widened, and since this isn’t Dubai, that means the signs have been put up, the trees have been cut down, and the earth cleared, but the roads themselves are nowhere to be seen.

And oh, how desperately the roads are needed. The traffic is nothing short of outrageous — it’s like Karachi’s traffic being crammed into Islamabad’s inadequate road grid. This is partially explained by the mushrooming growth Islamabad’s seen thanks to the real estate boom and security fears in other parts of the country, but the root cause is simply that the city wasn’t designed to sustain such traffic. The various parts of the city, sectors, are laid out in a grid, with roads going around them and through them. No real highway was designed in the original plans for the city, with only one major artery, Jinnah Avenue, stretching from the Presidency towards the newer sectors. Where Jinnah Avenue intersects with smaller roads, traffic blocks invariably result, often with wait times of over a minute (I’m not kidding — 180 seconds is the longest I’ve seen so far).

Now the government deserves some credit: some roads have already been widened (the Margalla Road is one example), and a very real improvement in the flow of traffic is obvious. At the same time, the reduction in the bordering green belt has been well-managed. Aesthetically, it might even be an improvement, since the road boundaries are more clearly defined, and the trees now appear to line the road rather than dotting the green belt untidily.

That said, there are several things the government should consider:

• Stop allowing residential areas to be used for commercial or academic activities. This one’s obvious, but won’t happen any time soon. Why? Well, the government has had very tight rules on where commercial buildings can be built (the Blue Area is pretty much the only place left in central Islamabad), and although they’re being relaxed now (they’re allowing the construction of multi-storey buildings in Melody, for example), building for one’s needs remains more expensive than renting pre-built properties and expanding as needed rather than all at once. Still, the real estate boom has left a lot of property in the hands of a few large investors, and liquidity has suffered, so it’s likely those investors will try to do something substantial with their land. A phased strategy from the government, starting perhaps by pushing commercial offices out of F-6 and G-6, might be the way to go. It would certainly help re-distribute the flow of traffic across the city, so that there isn’t an ant march towards those sectors in the mornings, and away from them in the evenings.
• Establish specific timeslots for slower vehicles (particularly tractors/trailers) to use inner city roads. This again is so obvious that I’m hopeful something of this sort is already in place. If it isn’t, this is perhaps the easiest to enact, and will encounter minimal public resistance, since the affectees are a minority, and are unlikely to make a fuss. Tractors and trailers are generally used for transporting dirt, cement and other building materials around the city. Their ridiculously slow speed and generally awkward shape pose a major hindrance (particularly on single-lane roads where over-taking isn’t an option). Restricting their use of city roads during rush hours, or even disallowing it except for weekends, would fix this immediately.
• Fix the ridiculous speed limits. 65kph is, plain and simple, a bad idea. Honestly, I can’t imagine how they arrived at that number. It’s slow enough to encourage people to flout rules, and makes those who steadfastly refuse to do so a real pain-in-the-neck. A real lose-lose situation. While on the subject, the introduction of speed cameras (apparently hand-me-downs from the highway police) is great and deserves praise.

(Note, I don’t think any of the above are actually going to happen.)

Other, smaller items that need attention:

• Cycle lanes five feet wide have been aded to several roads in F-6 and F-7. Ordinarily a good thing, cycle lanes have no place on roads that are already too cramped for cars. Don’t try to tell me otherwise — I’ve seen way too many drivers simply swerve into them as the need arises.
• Traffic cones have been placed in various places to try to get people to observe lane demarcations. Again, this would be a good thing except because of the varying road widths, lanes don’t match up. This means one moment you’re cruising along in a lane as you should be, and the next moment you’re straddling two lanes and about to hit a traffic cone.
• Many traffic signals have been switched off and the traffic is being conducted by policemen. I think this is to maintain order and also because the long queues at traffic lights make extraordinarily long periods necessary. It seems a poor solution to me.

Oh well, back to enjoying the rest of the Islamabad experience.