About a year ago, the residents of Lahore bitterly complained about the dust and diversions, which occurred because of the infrastructural development done in the city. Despite these complaints, dwellers of Lahore eagerly waited to see how the city would look like after such major developments were delivered. When the Metro Project concluded, people like me, who hailed from the areas which were so densely populated that travelling to different parts of Lahore has become a tedious and time consuming matter, stared at those high bridges with awe as those long red buses skimmed above the traffic struck roads.
For some of my cousins, who visited us from Faisalabad, these red buses and the bridges dedicated solely to them gave out the impression of London streets. When the first time they saw the great bus zoom on the Metro Bridge, they all were like “Oay ye kia tha?” “Ye tram hai?” ”Koi VIP route?”. I felt great pride in telling then that it was the cheapest public transport facility of Pakistan. They were filled with awe and it once again made me very happy to the dweller of Lahore!
Punjab Chief Minister, Shahbaz Sharif said that the provincial government would launch more mega projects of infrastructure and transport for providing better facilities to the masses. It was also said that a plan is currently under execution which involves the extending the route for metro bus project in Lahore. Now I can imagine selling my motorbike and saying goodbye to all my petrol and vehicle maintenance worries if the metro project was to snake along the whole city.
There are also plans to construct a new bridge on the river Ravi which will further facilitate the Metro Bus as the old bridge is continuously being clogged due to heave traffic. Yes, there are people who said that the metro project is useless and it’s not worth the cost but I would suggest them to offer me a transport which would take me from Kalmah Chowk to Secretariat in mere ten minutes or from Shahdara to Qainchi in just Rs20.
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Dear Sirs / Madam,
I’m an overseas Pakistani and I feel proud to be a part of the history when Metro was launched in Lahore last year. And I heard all sort of negative comments.
Anyway, for a business trip I was in Istanbul and I saw the metro bus was running successfully and the track was not just busy but you can even find buses back to back. And the people were delightedly moving from one corner to another without any sign of stress whereas we were in the car and covered the distance of 20km within Istanbul in almost 2 hrs.
So, I asked my host the story behind the metro bus in Turkey. He quoted that, “When metro bus was launched the media, news and the politicians all were cursing the Mayor and was saying what a terrible waste of money but we all feel proud because Metro is the cheapest and quickest way of improving the public transport in a metro city, like Istanbul”.
I, hope the facility will soon be extended towards the southern part of Lahore.
Keep it up the good work.
Regards,
Junaid.