FLYOVERS are being demolished all over the world because they are considered ugly and they break the openness of the city. The space they occupy is being turned into parks and recreational areas. This is being done through spatial reorganisation of the city, and by realising that building them is the most expensive way of trying to solve traffic-related issues.
When Karachi flyovers were first planned, there were professionals and civil society members who pointed out that they would solve traffic problems at non-rush hours. But at rush hours, they would increase them considerably. And today, conditions at rush hours at various nodes have become much worse than earlier — not only because of an increase of cars.
I can give a few examples of what has happened in the West, as I am sure that some readers are acquainted with the places I am going to mention. These projects are part of a larger city strategy to reclaim public space.
In the US, the Waterfront Park in Oregon is on a demolished freeway, and so is the West Side Highway in New York. Meanwhile, many US cities have proposals to remove elevated highways, converting them into public spaces, such as the Hudson River Park.
Similarly, France has turned expressways and elevated roads in Paris into green areas and pedestrian precincts. In the UK, too, in a number of areas, elevated highways have been demolished, creating public spaces, better environmental conditions and neighbourhood open spaces. This has also become a policy for the future.
Many of these areas, such as the Hammersmith flyover, which Karachi residents use on the journey to Heathrow on their way back to Pakistan, are also set to be demolished. However, the city most active in replacing flyovers and expressways with public space is Seoul in Korea. In the past decades, it has demolished some 18 flyovers and converted them into public spaces. Seoul hopes to achieve neighbourhoods where the dominance of automobiles and concrete structures is replaced by an environmentally friendly city. Seoul has a population of 10.26 million.
Flyovers have not solved the city’s problems.
Let’s come back to Karachi, which has built 43 flyovers in the last two decades. The FTC flyover opened to traffic in October 2004. It cost Rs109.4 million. Taking this as an average, the cost of these flyovers works out to around Rs5 billion, not taking inflation into consideration. They have not solved Karachi’s problems, and most of them were unnecessary, even to the then head of the traffic engineering bureau of the KDA, who was of the opinion that the decision to build the flyovers was not a technical but a political one.
As proof of this, there is the issue of the Gurumandir traffic management problem. Five roads converge at Gurumandir. A complex system of flyovers was envisaged for this and supported by the then president. The approximate cost worked out to Rs300m. However, the problem was solved very effectively by a traffic management and engineering solution with no flyovers, at a fraction of the calculated cost. Many professionals also feel that the flyovers help us in spending the loans that we take from IFIs.
Apart from aesthetics, the negative spaces created under the flyovers could have been used for public use (such as sports activities, parks for low-income communities, women’s toilets) instead of charity dastarkhwans and disorganised car parks. These are very large spaces, and with proper planning and no flyovers, they can still be used for public use. I am not advocating for their demolition, but for a public use of the spaces under them, and in future, the location of flyovers being decided on technical considerations and not for political and financial favours.
The cost of flyovers is added to by unnecessarily painting them with various motives of questionable aesthetic design. All over the world, most flyovers are finished in grey concrete so that the world of automobiles and buildings stands out in contrast, and the cost of repainting them periodically does not arise. The Lyari Expressway is 16.5 kilometres long. It is painted on both sides. The cost of this exercise works out to nearly Rs20m. It will have to be periodically painted, costing a huge financial loss to state agencies.
It is hoped that the lessons learned by the rest of the world are taken into consideration in the future, along with the points that have been raised in this article, when designing the location and deciding on the necessity of having a flyover. As a result, large volumes of land parcels can be used for the benefit of the majority of the people of the city, and not inappropriate and expensive solutions for the benefit of its elite.
The writer is an architect.
Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2026
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