For many Karachiites, commuting from one sector to another is a little less bothersome on weekends. But, at the same time, it becomes more hazardous to visit a popular recreational area on a public holiday. On working days, of course, traffic on the city’s roads projects a kind of struggle for survival.
During this long weekend, the tedium of being out on the streets in Karachi, particularly after sunset, has been somewhat alleviated by illuminations marking the Independence Day celebrations. There has been an air of festivity, inviting citizens to move out and look around. And that is an ordeal.
I had a taste of what it could be like when I dropped someone from our place on Zamzama to a house near Seaview in the afternoon on Friday – Independence Day. It was an occasion when ordinary people from distant localities consider it almost obligatory to come and pay their respects to the sea – a gift of nature that has been appropriated by the privileged communities. The tumult I had to wade through is hard to describe. It took me about an hour to cover perhaps four kilometres.
Because I had to do a lot of driving during this long weekend, I kept getting distracted from thinking about the cost most citizens of Karachi have to pay, including in many intangible ways, to live in this city. It may be argued that the lack of a mass and rapid transit system in Karachi, and the poor maintenance of its streets, affects the country’s economic, social, and, in a sense, emotional well-being.
I know that talking about the traffic situation in Karachi is an unexciting exercise. But I was persuaded to take it up and expand it across other themes after listening to numerous stories of friends and acquaintances. For instance, a woman executive with a nice, chauffeured car was almost in tears when she recounted commuting from North Nazimabad every day. She had her reasons for not being able to shift to the Defence or another location nearer her workplace, though that would also not be an easy ride.
Another example is of a friend who lives abroad and is visiting to be with his family. He said his relationships are being affected because it is very difficult to get close family members together, as they live in different corners of the city. For him, it is also a question of mental health.
Many lives, to be sure, are unjustly limited because of their lack of access to their desired destinations. Almost regularly, potentially gratifying literary and cultural programmes are held at the Arts Council that is located in the centre of the city and I know of people who want to come and cannot, after returning home from work. Occasionally, roads are blocked by protesters or by the police.
With reference to Karachi’s traffic and transport woes, there is the saga of University Road, which lies dug up because of major infrastructure work for the long-delayed BRT Red Line project and water pipelines. It constitutes a major disruption to the overall transport system and symbolises the degradation of the country’s most important city.
Without a mass transit network and adequate public transport, middle- and lower-middle-class citizens are compelled to own motorcycles, a truly dangerous mode of transport. More than 4.5 million motorcycles have literally been let loose on the roads in Karachi and it is a spectacle that, I believe, no other city in the world can match.
Ah, that is how Karachi is near the bottom of a properly compiled list of liveable cities. We tend to shrug off such classifications, but the alarm bells ringing in Karachi are growing louder. They should heed to these signals in Islamabad or wherever they sit on the high table of authority. As I have suggested, the traffic chaos is just one aspect of what ails Karachi, though it is too much in your face.
Many more manifestations show how unruly Karachi has become, despite some well-meaning initiatives by the city’s and the province’s administrations. The current scandal that has captured the imagination of the people is the murder of the young businessman Mir Raza Ali. It is not that a young man was murdered; the story of how the initial police investigation had botched it has raised questions that have not yet been fully answered. Earlier in the year, we learnt about the exploits of an alleged drug queen, Pinky, and that was also a warning of what transpires in this cosmopolitan city.
Is Karachi congenitally a damaged property? In any case, the challenge for Pakistan’s ruling establishment is to improve its ranking in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Index, compiled annually. In the 2026 Index, released just over a month ago, Karachi was placed at 170 in the list of 173 global cities. This means Karachi was fourth from the bottom, above only Dhaka, Tripoliand Damascus.
Those of us who have travelled abroad and visited cities high on the liveability list would understand why Karachi has fallen so low. Incidentally, the top five are Copenhagen, Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney and Zurich. Obviously, we live in another world. We do things differently.
I have many fond memories of using public transport in so many countries and walking the streets in a safe, lively atmosphere. My measure of a liveable city is where a young woman can walk alone on the street after sundown. Once, I saw this even in Damascus, before the civil war in Syria.
Finally, it should be noted that the index is based on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Hence, the sectors in which we need to do better are clearly identified.
The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached at: [email protected]
