Relocation of city's four bus terminals

FE Team | Published: June 17, 2026 20:50:56

The directive Prime Minister Tarique Rahman gave to the authorities concerned to relocate Dhaka's four inter-city bus terminals at the earliest brings this strategic issue into sharp focus. Facts that often escape notice are Dhaka's haphazard growth in defiance of any systematic urban plan and the unchecked internal village-to-capital migration leading to one of the world's highly crowded nightmares. The city's infrastructural eco-system could not be more vulnerable with streets and thoroughfares proving sorely inadequate compared to its requirement. Relocation of bus terminals further away is aimed at freeing the traffic arteries from chocking due to the buses on long-distance route crowding the city's main entry points. If the buses drop passengers at terminals located beyond the immediate city peripheries where it is not much crowded, the city's traffic congestion will decrease significantly.
A close look at the Fulbaria-Gulistan bus terminal reveals that every bus on long route has to make a detour along the busiest roads at the time of leaving the city, creating a gridlock, particularly in rush hours. This happens more or less in case of other terminals as well. Apart from bus terminals, entire segments of roads such as from Kalyanpur to Technical crossing are used either as starting points or parking lots. There are also isolated bus counters at several places on the Mirpur Road. Roundabout movement at Technical crossing not only creates tailback but also delay the bus journey. Limited space for parking buses is indeed a serious problem. Roads are used for this purpose.
All such problems highlight the merit of relocation of bus terminals for inter-city buses to more spacious and less crowded places. But relocation alone will not serve the purpose unless new bus terminals are built strategically to meet the growing challenges. Designing bus terminals is most important. The entry point and the exit point have to be designed in such a way that buses leaving the terminus and entering it will not face each other. In both cases it will be a one-way traffic and there will be no detour for the buses at the starting point. The management of buses that arrive with passengers have to be directed to move to their designated parking lots as soon as possible. Streamlining the arrival and departure of long-route buses set the tone of the journey for passengers. Reportedly Mohakhali bus terminal will be temporarily moved to Purbachal before it is permanently relocated in Tongi. Why not opt for Tongi now? Temporary relocation will involve waste of money.
The choice of location is important. If the bus terminals are located at a considerable distance, there should be proper arrangement of passengers' last leg of journey home. Feeder roads must connect the terminuses with arrangement for adequate public transports so that passengers are not stranded there. Also security of movement on those feeder roads has to be ensured. The experiences of relocations made so far in case of leather factories and chemical godowns have not been happy largely because of faulty plans. This latest relocation should not suffer similar reversals. Before taking up the project of relocation, feasibility study of each of the four new sites has to be carried out to determine their usefulness and avoid demerits as much as possible.