Karachi mass transit: a pipe dream

THE Frontier Works Organisation has taken over construction of University Road, which is part of Karachi’s chronically sick Red Line project, on an ‘emergency’ footing to meet a 90-day deadline — offering some hope to long-suffering Karachiites. However, a broader perspective reveals a more complex picture of Karachi’s transport issues. The idea of the Bus Rapid Transit was first introduced in Pakistan during the Karachi Mass Transit Study (KMTS) in 1987-1990 — nearly 25 years before Punjab implemented the Lahore Metrobus, the country’s first BRT, in 2013. KMTS, undertaken by the Karachi Develop­ment Authority through local and international experts, and assisted by the World Bank and UNDP, identified six high-demand corridors with a total length of 87 kilometres of BRTs and Light Rail Transits (LRTs). In 1990, a priority corridor from Sohrab Goth to Tower was selected as the pilot project. It was never implemented. Another attempt by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 2010 gave the city the meticulously prepared Karachi Transportation Improvement Project 2012-2030 (KTIP). Finalised in 2012, it proposed an 18-year plan including six BRT lines (91.5 km), two LRT lines (41 km) and the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR — 43 km) for a total network of 175.5 km to be completed by 2030. KTIP remained dormant until 2015, when the federal government — despite urban transport being a provincial subject — initiated and completed 20 km of the Green Line BRT in two years. However, delays in bus procurement by the Sindh government left the facility unutilised till 2021, when the federal government stepped in to procure buses. The remaining 2 km (Numaish to Saeed Manzil) have been a bone of contention between the two governments for several years now. Karachi currently has fewer than 700 private buses plying on its roads against an estimated requirement of 8,000-10,000. The Sindh government has completed only one BRT — the Orange Line (3.9 km) — during the p