SOLUTIONS * Pakistan - Citizens look to Bogota as solution to their transport woes
Majority of citizens in Karachi believe that they have perhaps among the worst public transport system in the world
Karachi,Pakistan -The International News, by Farooq Baloch -7 Oct 2008: -- There is no standard for drivers or conductors as none is trained for the job. There are no proper bus stops except a few, nor do the drivers and passengers follow the law by stopping at them. Local buses, mini buses and coaches etc. race with each other to pick the maximum number of passengers and in doing so, often throw a passenger from a moving bus rather than dropping him safely by stopping the vehicle... The traffic police have their own excuses for the existing situation and blame the transporters and the government for every wrong. Similarly, operators of public transport blame the traffic police for extorting money and the government for other problems. The government also hides its own faults and instead criticises transporters and the traffic police department... How this mess can be reformed is the question that needs to be answered now. I can recall the presentation of an expert on urban development, Enrique Penalosa, who compared the public transport system of Karachi with that of Bogota, his own city where he served as Mayor and changed the entire infrastructure of the city. He said that before he introduced the TransMillenio, a bus rapid transit (BRT) system, the public transport in Bogota (Colombia) was quite similar to that of Karachi... (Picture: The local buses are designed for passenger overflow to sit on the roof) Labels: public transport solutions
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