Earlier this week, Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar inaugurated the Gulab Devi Underpass in Lahore that has been named after Abdul Sattar Edhi. As per reports, the full height three-lane underpass would ease the movement of 132,000 plus vehicles and the authorities claim that Rs60 million have been saved through transparent tendering.
The government appears to be very proud of this achievement as it claims that the facility will benefit hundreds and thousands of citizens in their daily movement. However, given the challenges we face today, one must question whether such projects bring us closer to building more sustainable cities.
Of course, all governments have focused on such infrastructure projects and are equally guilty of neglecting the shifting trends around us. Over the past decade, Lahore has witnessed significant infrastructural development in transport, however the bulk of the focus has been on private transportation and roads.
trend needs to be arrested considering the severe climate threats we are facing currently and also the fact that Pakistan has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the region. SDG 11 dictates that cities and human settlements should be made inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
What we require at this point in time is investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways. Signal-free corridors however, have the exact opposite effect.
Building more roads creates further environmental complications as concrete and paved surfaces absorb heat and radiate it back into the surroundings, contributing to the ‘urban heat island’ effect—due to which temperatures in cities are several degrees higher than the natural temperatures in surrounding areas. These problems are further compounded in suburbanised, car-centric development models like ours.
The focus should instead be on the development of functional transit systems which is critical to building sustainable cities that future generations can survive in. An overall shift towards pedestrian culture and more sustainable means of travel is needed. For this shift to come about however, the authorities will have to change how they perceive such development projects.
Even today, the sitting government laments how the Orange Line Metro Train project is generating minimal income. This is a flawed argument and these projects are not supposed to be profitable enterprises in the first place. If we are to adapt for the upcoming challenges we will face, a paradigm shift in our thinking will have to come about first. It is about time that we realise that a price cannot be placed upon the health and future of our country and its citizens.
