An elevated corridor of Karachi’s incomplete Green Line Bus Rapid Transit System in mid-October.
Photographer: Asim Hafeez/BloombergThe World's Worst Public Transport System Attempts to Modernize
Incomplete roads in Karachi — the biggest city in Pakistan and the third-largest in the world — show what happens when a megacity becomes a political orphan.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah Road has always had its share of traffic, but lately the main thoroughfare that connects central Karachi to its major port is in a state of near constant gridlock.
An elevated street eats up two of the road’s three lanes, but it’s empty — part of an incomplete project to create express lanes for public buses that was supposed to finish three years ago. It’s one of many towering structures scattered throughout the Pakistani city that were part of the latest plans to bring a modern transportation to Karachi, one of the world’s fastest-growing cities and the third-biggest by population.