A nation’s roads often reveal more about its governance than its political speeches ever can.
Smooth highways, efficient transport systems and transparent public services create confidence among citizens. Broken roads, endless toll queues and rising charges create something very different. frustration, distrust and a growing sense that ordinary people are paying more while receiving less.
Pakistan today stands uncomfortably between these two realities. Over the last two decades, governments have heavily promoted infrastructure development as proof of national progress. Motorways, flyovers, ring roads and expressways have been showcased as symbols of modernization and economic ambition. Billboards celebrate connectivity while official narratives describe transport networks as the backbone of growth. Yet the daily experience of the average traveler tells another story.
For millions of Pakistanis, especially those who frequently travel on intercity routes such as the Grand Trunk Road, the journey has become increasingly expensive and increasingly exhausting at the same time. Toll taxes continue to rise with remarkable consistency, but the quality of service often moves in the opposite direction. Travelers pay premium charges but continue to encounter damaged roads, unmanaged traffic flow, poor maintenance and long delays at toll plazas. This contradiction lies at the heart of public anger. In principle, toll taxation is neither unfair nor unusual. Around the world, road users contribute toward the maintenance and expansion of transport infrastructure. The logic is simple: better roads require financial support. However, successful systems operate on an unwritten but essential agreement between the state and the citizen. If the public pays more, the public must experience visible improvement.
That relationship appears dangerously weak in Pakistan. One of the most visible examples is the condition of roads surrounding many toll collection points themselves. Travelers often slow down at a toll booth, pay a mandatory fee and then immediately drive over cracked surfaces, potholes or poorly repaired patches of asphalt. The message this sends is deeply damaging. Citizens begin to feel that revenue collection has become more important than public service.
Equally troubling is the inefficiency built into the system. Long queues at toll plazas have become a routine feature of travel. Vehicles remain stranded while only a limited number of booths operate, despite the heavy traffic volume. The result is not merely inconvenience. It is wasted fuel, lost working hours, delayed transportation of goods, and avoidable environmental pollution.
In an already struggling economy, such inefficiency quietly multiplies financial pressure on ordinary people. There is also an issue of fairness that receives little public attention. Many toll plazas are positioned in ways that affect local populations more than long-distance travelers. Residents commuting short distances for work, education or business are repeatedly charged for routes that have effectively become part of their daily lives. For salaried workers and lower-income families, these repeated payments accumulate into a significant burden over time.
What makes the situation more difficult to justify is the absence of transparency. Citizens rarely know how toll revenue is allocated, what percentage is spent on maintenance or why certain roads remain in poor condition despite years of collection. In the absence of accountability, suspicion naturally grows.
Pakistan’s infrastructure challenge is not simply about constructing more roads. It is about restoring public trust in how these systems are managed. Citizens are generally willing to contribute when they can clearly see results. What they resist is the feeling of being trapped inside a system that demands payment without delivering value.
Development cannot be measured only by the number of highways built. It must also be measured by the quality, fairness and efficiency of the systems attached to them. Because when a road becomes a symbol of exploitation instead of progress, the problem is no longer engineering. It becomes a crisis of governance itself.
—The writer is former Regional Executive Inclusive Development at NBP, Mirpur AK.
