NED University of Engineering and Technology

Usama Fareed

Department of Urban & Infrastructure

Engineering

Planning for Your City

Problems of Karachi and Their Solutions:
Urban Sprawl:

Urban sprawl is a very big issue which was told by Holy Prophet Peace be upon him 1400 years
ago that “Do not spread the boundaries of your city”. This is because of two reason when the
city spreads it causes administrative problems and law and order problems as well.

Solution:

In case of Karachi I think so there is only one option that is we must develop new cities where
people get job and all the facilities for which they come to Karachi. And the ideal city which can
be developed even much better from Karachi is Gawader, if we develop the port their foreign
investors will invest there and new jobs will be provided to them, and load from Karachi will be
distribute.

Predominance of Automobiles:

This issue was strongly became a serious issue when the facility of CAR Financing was
introduced, after this facility the volume of automobiles increased by double. We should not
blame only this factor, we must realize that before this we were not providing good traveling
facility to the users, when they people got the chance to have their own vehicle in which they
travel with comfort they avail this facility.

Solution:

This problem can be resolved by combination of solutions discussed below:

 Mix Land Use: Mix land use can be solution to this problem we can reduce the
vehicular traffic by mix land use. Lets take Gulshan –e- Iqbal as a example, in Gulshan-
e- iqbal we have residential area, schools, colleges, recreational spaces, universities,
shopping plazas, and offices very close to each other, if we provide separate routes and
lanes for the bicycles and Scotties and educate the people to use them so it can be very

I OWN KARACHI (PROBLEMS AND THEIR PROPOSED SOLUTIONS)

NED University of Engineering and Technology

helpful in reducing the vehicular traffic. And the people whose workplaces are at a
distance they must be provided with public transport.
 Dedicated CNG Buses: This project was started by former City Nazim Mr. Mustafa
Kamal. Basically according this project 4000 CNG bus service was to be started by the
CDGK on different routs according to the travel demand, Ticket booths were made at
the bus stops, and bus only stops at the bus stop. Since the buses were bgi enough to
accumulate about 40 to 50 person in a manner that they can reach their destination in a
respectful manner. Exclusive terminals were made for theses buses where all the
services related to repair and maintenance was done. The cleanliness, maintenance,
repair of buses was made sure by the driver and his helper.
I don’t know what happened than the service was stopped for one month, after one
month when the service was restarted for the public there were some very bad changes
made in the system, these buses were given to the private sector, the ticket booth system
was finished, now the bus has traditional ticket collector, and bus stops like mini buses
where the driver get the passenger no defined bus stops. The result of these changes will
be no more different that ws happened with UTS transport service.
The government must take action against this privatization and must continue this
service as it was started by Mr. Mustafa Kamal.
 Mass Transit System: We have the railway track laid down by KCR for
interconnecting the town. We must start the improved train service for only town to town
level so tat the time which is spend on travelling can be shorten.
 Small Vans and QINGQI (Chinkchi) Rickshaws: We must start service
small vans like Hi ace, and QINGQI rickshawas in which 8 to 15 person can
travel very comfortably for the small distances like from residential area to
market, to residential area to school, university, and colleges etc. it will also
reduce the vehicular traffic.

Lake of Community:
I will take it with a different angle. In my opinion we must start the new police system that is
Community Police system, in this system all the staff of the police will of same community
(area) where it is deployed, now they people know the problems of their community they will
have to solve it otherwise they will have to face the consequences by the same community.

Slums:
I will relate this problem with the urban sprawl. Due to very abrupt expenditure of the city
management of the city is very difficult and even planed areas are being converted into slums.

What I will suggest is that we must go for high rise construction. For example take Liyari Town
as Pilot project. For construction in lyari we must have to provide space to the residents of Liyari
for living, in gaddap town we have large open space, if we construct 10 storey apartment
buildings in these area according the family size and comfort are like 3 rooms, 4 rooms, 5 rooms,
and 6 rooms apartment. Now provide there school, college, hospital parks, and community
center. Water supply can be easily provide their because it is near to hub dam, for electricity a

I OWN KARACHI (PROBLEMS AND THEIR PROPOSED SOLUTIONS)

NED University of Engineering and Technology

power station must be setup their, since the buildings are close to each other their will be less
line losses, and if we use solar cell and wind turbines on these building we can generate
sufficient amount of electricity. And if we provide space for the professional work of the resident
so he did not has need to travel out of the town. In this way the distances are decreased and
people can use bicycles and even go by walk to their required place. It will decrease the use of
vehicular traffic that is less pollution will be generated. And by doing this system we can have
complete data related to the residents if we collect the data at the time of allotment. Strong
security can also be achieved in this sort of community.

This approach of mix land use can be applied to every town.

Professional/ Institutional incapability:

In my opinion institutions and professional are capable, but the thing is our institutions are
politicized. If this thing is removed the institutions will work like professionals.

Green Field Redevelopment:

We must not be dependent on the other cities for the our food purpose. We must develop green
spaces so that we produce things for our own use. We have the open area near Hub which we can
convert into forms on the other end we also have open land which we can use for the forming
purpose, so that we can get rid of this dependence.

Traffic Management:
The process of road widening is been done on a very large scale in last 5 years but we still have
problems related to traffic jams on the daily basis due to bad management of traffic.

I have two solutions for this problem one is that was adopted by Lahore city, they have
completely finished the old traffic police system, and brought up the new city wardens who are
graduate and ahs good pay scale and respect also. Now since they are having the things by right
way they not go for the wrong things.

The second thing which I am really interested to take as final year project is that we must
minimize the man power in this traffic system and must go for the Intelligent transport system as
it is working very strongly and efficiently in Dubai. The first step towards this is the Installation
of CCTV cameras and construction of Command and Control room.

By both these method corruption will also be considerably reduce.

I OWN KARACHI (PROBLEMS AND THEIR PROPOSED SOLUTIONS)