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15 Jan, 8 tweets, 6 min read
#Karachi has a glorious bus-based mass transit line, 23 years after the Karachi Circular Railway shut down, and I couldn’t be happier. This is the Board Office station. A bunch of city enthusiasts went up & down the entire line to celebrate!
We got on at the cavernous Numaish station. The sight of a ticket booth was pure joy. I could hardly contain my joy!
That fresh bus smell and shine 🤩✨
We briefly got off at the Board Office station. Bright, airy, no fuss. Super helpful staff.
Took it all the way to the last stop: Abdulla Chowk station. Sadly, none of the lifts and escalators were working. A lot of stations are also incomplete. That didn’t dampen our joy, or those of fellow passengers.
The bus got more crowded on the way back. We made a brief stop at Nazimabad No 1 station. The stations and their surroundings need better upkeep.
You will appreciate the bus more if you see what the alternative is.
Made a pit stop at Nazimabad No 1 to get some khopra mithai from Mulla A Halwai because 1) it is incredible and 2) the occasion called for it. Highly recommend to everyone. Mubarak ho Karachi walon! 🥂

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More from @gulraizkhan

Gulraiz Profile picture
1 Aug 21
To write about 1950s Karachi, I cycled along the route of MTC tramway. Bandar Road was the main spine & rightfully so. How would the domes & spires of grand public buildings, like Municipal Hall, not instill a sense of civic pride? From Eidgah, you can see as far as the port.
The colonial, mercantilist Karachi lives on at Napier Rd, around the bend at Nigar Cinema, & up the length of Lawrence/Nishtar Rd. Trading houses. Steel warehouses. Timber Market. Bhimpura. Ramswamy. This line went all the way up to Gandhi Garden.
The leafy Parsi Colony sandwiched between Holy Family Hospital & Bandar Rd is really the early 20th century bedroom Karachi frozen in time. Served by the Soldier Bazar tram then, and the Green Line soon. Preserving some of this is imperative. Bonus: got chased by dogs.
Read 6 tweets
Gulraiz Profile picture
30 May 21
Here is Karachi’s “model” thoroughfare, Shahrah-e-Faisal (SEF). 15 kms from Metropole to the Airport, it falls under 2 Cantonments & 2 Districts. Before 2004, it had 3 bridges. Now it has 12. That hasn’t changed its capacity & it continues to be a nightmare. Here’s why.
Nine flyovers & underpasses, costing billions, have been added over the last two decades to make this “signal-free,” & a thoroughfare for cars to speed through. Significant chunks were widened. What the planners ignored was that most parts of SEF are destinations.
In Districts East, Malir & Karachi Cantt, SEF passes through densely populated areas. This means one thing: lots of cuts for cars & bikes from these areas to access the road. The red dots on the map. Over 200 along the entire 30km stretch. As Faisal Cantt builds up, this will ⬆️.
Read 6 tweets
Gulraiz Profile picture
7 Feb 21
Clifton’s Emerald Necklace.

Clifton, & District South, have the largest concentration of designated parks in the city. From Nehr-e-Khayyam to the beach & back up along the Boat Basin, they form a chain, which, if connected, can provide the city a valuable recreation space.
Nehr-e-Khayyam is right now a dumpster & dumping ground. Several attempts have been made to encroach along its banks. Few attempts made to restore the drain & develop it as a linear park. Say hello to these excited neighborhood pups.
The first park along its banks is the Urban Forest, which is visibly struggling. Entrance along the Nehr is closed, but the one in the street behind open. The place is overgrown, but promising as a space for engagement. This experiment of stewardship should not fail.
Read 18 tweets
Gulraiz Profile picture
17 Jan 21
Went on the Orange Line Metro, Pakistan’s first rail-based mass transit system, accompanied by @theLahorewala. What a beautiful piece of public infrastructure! Don’t want to dismiss the displacement it caused, but here’s some of the highlights:
Happy to report it has the new train shine & smell✨ 🌺. Commuters were almost all working class folks, quiet, reverent & respectful of this public property. It’s only been a few months, but the silence & non-chalance of the riders shows how quickly good transit can embed itself.
Here it is, pulling into an above-ground station, complete with the shrieks & the rush of air🚇💨. Everyone seems to be respectfully grappling with the system: ticket issuers, guards at platform, folks at turnstiles. It’s a whole new universe of interactions & I’m here for it 🙌🏽
Read 7 tweets
Gulraiz Profile picture
16 Jan 21
Lahore’s greatest assets are its sprawling public parks: esp Race Course/Jilani & Lawrence Gardens/Bagh-e-Jinnah. @asim_minahil suggested we walk through them, and up the Mall to Lahore Museum, as we caught up on our lives. Here’s them in all their glory, with no/few people.
Special mentions at Race Course: a thriving cactus display 🌵; a tree planted by filmstar/glookaara Megha Ji 💃🏽; a garden of yellow and Orange Marigolds 🌼; and curated, thick grooves of trees that look like an enchanted forest in this fog/smog 🌳🌴🌲
Here’s a cricket match in one of the two cricket fields, ensconced by these beautiful, neatly-planted trees along the boundary.
Read 6 tweets
Gulraiz Profile picture
3 Jan 21
Atlas of (Dys)Function: Power (& lack thereof) in Karachi & the region.

Here is the 1st chapter of my proposed atlas that I’ve completed over the last 10, wrist-breaking days. I’d taken time off from work to focus on this labour of love, & produce at least 1 complete artifact.
On the front is a map, geographically accurate, & slightly exaggerated, laying out all power production facilities (> 50 MWs) in & around the city. I added the missing ones from the last iterations, cleaned up the icons & standardised the colours for clarity.
On the top right are two charts: 1 showing the challenge of the network divided into two T&D systems (with little connectivity) & the other shows the energy mix as it will shape up over the next two years.
Read 7 tweets

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