Five (5) Reasons To Love #SignalFreeJailRoad as a #Project

(DISCLAIMER: As much as it might seem like it, or no matter ho much you’d be tempted to think that way, this post is not an add campaign for those building the “Signal Free Jail Road”. This post is just an expression of what I, as an engineer and a policy analyst felt. Because, I know, criticism is sexy but honest appreciation is even sexier still)

You’ve read extensively about how the “Signal Free Jail Road” will benefit the city of Lahore in multiple ways in dealing with its current and future traffic problems. However, this blog is focusing on the “Signal Free Jail Road” as an infrastructure project and why should it be loved.

Any who uses this road everyday to work and back, has a pretty good idea of how challenging doing ANYTHING on this super busy intersection was. Just some of the challenges included were:

• Managing the everyday flux of the traffic in a road with massive trade centers, major hospital and a number of large educational institutions draw thousands of cars every day.

• Ensuring zero damage to life (injuries or worse)by accidents related to the project

• While doing that, keeping an aggressive pace of work, prioritizing and completing the toughest and most disruptive parts first

• Not compromising on the promised standards, planning or conservation guidelines

As it turns out, the project has been doing a near perfect job to deal with all these issues.

Both Under-Passes  are virtually almost complete

(1) Shadman Underpass

(2) Gulberg Underpass

(3) The Project uses night-time for major work

(4) Traffic management has been more or less bearable as compared to what we saw in the past

(5) Oh! And yeah, we got to keep over 96 % of all our Trees

(Images Courtesy: Habib Constructions, because i dont own a drone lol)

Are We Still Human??!!

(No Pictures or illustrations in this blog because i dont have the emotional energy to do so, neither does it merit any)

I was going to write a blog on better practices of road construction, followed by another one on Environment Impact Assessment, like I wrote in my last blog and tweeted about it too. But something happened which forced me to write this. I just could not get that terrible view out of my head, it has been consuming my thoughts and I just had to share it with my readers.

The Mall Road had been under repair and maintenance and majority of the traffic had taken to the Jail Road as a bypass which created obvious super-flux on this already busy road. Going to meet a friend on Monday evening, I came across one of worst nightmares which always sucks the life out of me. I’ve been blogging about the problems faced by the amazing civilians of this amazing city due to traffic congestion.

The moment I got on the Jail Road from the Canal Road, I couldn’t go any further because of the trail of cars jammed up on that road extended right from the crossing in front of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC)/ JIllani Park. The amount of heat and smog due to the hundreds of cars stacked bumper-to-bumper on the road was immense, but that wasn’t what bothered me the most.

Not very far from where I was stuck were two ambulances, not more than 150 yards away from each other, stuck in traffic.  The sirens of both the ambulances were deafening as if screaming in agony to get their patients to the PIC, the screams of the excruciating frustration of the loved ones of the patients being rushed to the hospital but not being able to get to it. The screams of the pain of the battle between life and death of those in the ambulance awaiting their fate.

Right when all this was happening it just got worse, I saw a boy get out of the ambulance trying to clear the vehicles clogged in front of the ambulance. He was literally begging the drivers of the cars in utter desperation, running from this end to that.

With the PIC right in-front or him not a quarter mile away. He could, with his eyes, witness the distance between life and death, he could see the hospital but could not get his loved one to it. As I was at tail end of this Jam at that time I backed-up my car after much struggle to the canal road corner and got out of my car to try to help him, but the situation was so screwed up that the cars were moving at a snail’s pace and at every green light the total advancement was not more than a meter at best.

I just did not know how to help this boy and the people in those ambulances, frustrated and totally brain dead due to helplessness, I got to my car and took to the canal road again to go back home. I called my friend to tell him that I won’t be able to meet up for the get-together as I was not in the right state of mind to have fun.

I want to ask all of you reading this, why can we not solve this evident problem by making Jail Road Signal Free, when we KNOW that PIC is th eionly specialist hospital for cardiac issues ?? I want to ask you all why is our political and social ego so paramount over human suffering at the most extreme hours that we block such an OBVIOUSLY beneficial project??? I wasn’t to ask all of you is that fact that there are over 2o private and government hospitals/clinics on Jail Road that can benefit from this then WHY CANT WE HELP THE SITUATION??

Right now I am not going to blame or write against any political party or Lahore Bachao blocking this project, right now I want us all to feel the agony of that boy and think entirely like just a human who cannot let the humanity in them die by witnessing such heart-wrenching scenes.