Commuters Irked By Daily Traffic Jams Seek Expansion Of Stalled Signal-free Islamabad Expressway

Commuters living along the Islamabad Expressway Tuesday made a fervent appeal to authorities concerned to save them from daily agony of getting stuck in traffic jams for hours, endangering lives of patients and wasting precious fuel.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jul, 2018 ) :Commuters living along the Islamabad Expressway Tuesday made a fervent appeal to authorities concerned to save them from daily agony of getting stuck in traffic jams for hours, endangering lives of patients and wasting precious fuel.

The commuters - hailing from dozens of housing societies, along the Islamabad Expressway from Koral to Rawat have to bear the torture of finding a way through the long lines of heavy vehicles, buses and cars, stretching to kilometers.

The agony of the daily travelers on Islamabad Expressway has multiplied over the years with the deterioration of the road, increasing traffic and the delay on the much trumpeted "Signal-free Corridor" as heavy traffic jams continue to pollute the environment.

"We have made many appeals, media has reported about problems of the commuters repeatedly, yet the civic body responsible for the mess has failed to respond," said Yousuf Gul a resident of a housing society in Rawat.

"People miss their flights, students cannot reach in time for their examinations, patients rushing to hospitals risk their lives, but the CDA seems to be least bothered," he said.

On Monday (yesterday), traffic on the south-bound section remained stuck for hours as a loaded truck broke down at a narrow bridge near the Naval Anchorage, while the north-bound traffic faced a similar fate on Tuesday as suspension of another over-loaded truck broke yet again on a two-lane bridge near the Gulberg Greens.

An official of the Islamabad traffic police deployed to manage the mess created said the heavily loaded trucks usually breakdown on the road, owing to the dilapidated road and there was no way to remove them, as they have to be repaired on site.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the Zero Point � Faizabad section of the Expressway in July 2015, and announced that the remaining sections of the 10-lane new Expressway from Faizabad to GT Road would be completed in two phases. So far the road has been completed till Gulberg Greens, while no progress has been made on the remaining 10 km section of the Islamabad Expressway.

The project was designed to provide service roads on eastern and western sides along the entire 24 km length of the road, construction of bridges over the railway tracks, nullahs and River Soan, pedestrian bridges, bus bays, lighting system, besides five interchanges at Sector I-8, Sohan, Khanna, Koral and Rawat.

The CDA was still carrying out work at the Khanna interchange with its traditional slow pace and was still far from complete.

The government of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi days before end of its tenure announced a package of Rs 10.7 billion for completion of the around 10 km long remaining section of the road from Gulberg Greens till Rawat, in two phases.

The amount was to be released to the CDA in installments over the next two years. An amount of Rs one billion was to be released to the civic agency in the fiscal year 2017-18 as a token to initiate work on the project.

The CDA's summary approved by the prime minister directed that Rs7bn be allocated for the project in the 2018-19 Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), while Rs2.75bn would be allocated in the PSDP 2019-20.

Under the first package the Expressway would be expanded from the Gulberg Greens Interchange to Naval Anchorage � a five kilometre stretch, while the second 7 km long package would be completed from Naval Anchorage to the G.T. Road in second phase. The prime minister had directed the CDA to complete the first package by June 2019 and the second by Sept 30, 2019.

Meanwhile, the daily travellers continue to bear the brunt of CDA's inefficiency in resolving the issue. Asif Ahmed, who daily commutes to Blue Area for work from PWD said unless the expressway was expanded to ten-lanes till Rawat, along with the service roads and remaining interchanges, the situation would not improve.

The CDA, plagued by paucity of funds has sought public-private partnership for construction of interchanges with private housing societies from the Koral Airport. However it has little funds available for undertaking the works on the third stage.

Following the example of Gulberg Greens, the Naval Anchorage has already completed its overhead bridge, while the Defence Housing Authority was yet to start construction.

The traffic flow on the Islamabad Expressway would continue to increase till any progress was made on the another long lost Rawalpindi Ring Road project, stalled for the past two decades.