Daily Times

These days, the construction of the much-awaited Lahore Orange Line Metro Train (OMT) is underway. The hype of the project has crossed borders now. Similarly, a “few” bodies complain that Lahore does not need the project in the first place. To understand why there is an urgent need of a metro train in Lahore, we need to first understand the benefits enjoyed by the nations where metro trains are successfully operating.

To begin with, metro trains are capable of providing huge health benefits to people. For instance, people who prefer a lifestyle that involves the use of public transit tend to be more active than those who don’t. This is so because people get a chance to walk in order to get to the station or even after reaching their location.

From an environmental point of view, mass transit systems such as metro trains ensure less congestion in cities. Talking about Lahore, a city that is already burdened with problems such as noise pollution, air pollution and traffic congestion, badly needed a metro train. For that matter, the Orange Metro Train project by the Government of Punjab would be a milestone once its construction is completed. Lahore has been facing the problem of traffic congestion from so many years. Establishing a proper public transport system was what the city required. Consequently, people who use metro trains are comparatively less prone to heart attacks and respiratory diseases. Traffic congestion can stimulate increasing levels of carbon emissions and emissions of other toxic gases which are dangerously harmful to humans.

Metro trains in specifically the most congestion- fed cities are the best modern day solution to curb the damages of global warming. Metro trains not only reduce the load of traffic on roads but also ease congestion. Furthermore, they come handy when it comes to saving time by reducing tome spent on travelling. Metro trains around the world are known to protect the mobility of people and save their money. For instance, in America alone, public transport services in the most congested cities saved 1.1 billion hours of added travel time. Not only this public transportation produces 95 percent less carbon monoxide (CO), 90 percent less in volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), and about has as much carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide. When a city has a rapid mass transit system to follow, apart from the basic facilities, there are other sub benefits that people become acquainted with. For example, people around the world who have become used to travelling using metros in Greece,Paris, Belgium, UK, USA etc. have an understanding of how much fuel is saved with an increasing use of metro trains. Lahore badly needs lesser carbon emissions, lesser use of fuel and less traffic on the streets.

Plus, metro trains save people from traffic jams while they can spend their time travelling on metros for relaxing activities such as reading or listening to music. This proves how very comfortable, feasible and relaxing the use of metro train can be over the use of personal transport.

Similarly, in Lahore, who would have thought that a construction of a metro station was a must have. The government of Punjab realized its importance. The government knew that the people of the mega city Lahore needed a fully equipped and feasible means of daily transport to mobilize the people of the city in a cost effective manner Metro trains are a setup with a huge system and require thousands of workers, officials and laborers at its disposal from the beginning of its construction.This is how the idea of making metro trains for mass transit created thousands of jobs for people. Not only this, the Lahore metro trains will take people to and from their workplaces. It will connect people of rural areas and sub urban areas of the city to those in the urban areas and create more opportunities to benefit from. Such a mixing of 250,000 commuters each day will unify people, create a “we feeling” among them. People might just be able to use communication as a key towards a better economic and social feature.

The Orange Line Metro Train in Lahorewill be situated over a route starting from Ali Town and ending at DeraGujran. It will connect Raiwand Road, Multan Road, McLeod Road, Lahore Junction and the Grand Trunk Road. Ultimately, people located in isolated residencies would also have easy access to the urban or sub urban areas of the city. The route itself is a testimony of how an interconnection might be experienced by the city where all parties directly or indirectly involved benefit. It is expected that the daily ridership of the Orange Metro Train in Lahore would increase up to 500,000 commuters each day. All over the world, the cities with metro trains, for instance, Paris and Athens are experiencing lots of gains in the economic atmosphere because of their local rural economic growth in many ways. Metros can help increase the local customer base for a range of services and products. This is so because it is a growing trend of building educational institutes, hospital, sites for tourist’s attraction, shopping malls, hotels, or other businesses along side or somewhere close to the metro stations.

The Lahore Orange Metro Train Project will have 26 stations so there is a high chance of increasing economic growth rate. Especially the rural or sub urban economic growth will face a boost because of expected commercialization of all the locations surrounding the route of the orange line metro train.

As a consequence, the prices of existing residential, commercial properties will also increase, hence increasing the price of nearby lands. Conclusively, public transportations, specifically metro trains are important for a growing population of people at different stages of life. The Orange Metro Trains would not only lower the rate of accidents per year but also ease the dependence of people on the use of oil or gas as a source of fuel. However with a lesser rate of dependence on fuel, prices of gas may also lower.