Just in time. This is very crucial for the area. The traffic at this point on rush hour is enormous. One might need 20 - 30 min just to cross this section of the canal road.
Canal Bank Road serves as the major North South artery of Lahore (see red line). From Thokar Niaz Beg all the way to Dharampura, underpasses have made traffic flow non-stop and rarely do you see traffic jams. In a way, it has sort of become an expressway, but ends abruptly at Dharampura. From Dharampura to Ring Road, the old small Canal Road has virtually made it unusable and traffic is real bad in this section.
They want to create a signal free corridor all the way from the Thokar Niaz Beg to Harbanspura.
The dotted red line is the U/C part and the small dash lines is the remaining part of Canal Road this needs to be widened. The Green lines is the ring road and motorway, blue lines are the national highways (N5 / Multan Road, N60) and the Purple Lines are major Punjab provincial roads (Lahore Kasur Road or Ferozepur Road and Lahore-Bedian Road and Lahore-Wagah Road...).
LAHORE:
The Beijing Underpass is a monument to friendship between Pakistan and China, Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday while inaugurating what the provincial government claimed was one of the longest under-passes in the country named after the Chinese capital.
He said that this 1.3-kilometre-long underpass was built in record time of 125 days, costing Rs3.67 billion.
According to him, the underpass could handle 250,000 vehicles every day, greatly reducing traffic congestion on the Canal Road and its peripheries.