Heavy traffic congestion on the streets of the capital and slow movement of vehicles are no longer limited to the communication and transport problems; those had reached long before the level of an economic indicator for the nation and a liveability index for the city. The problem is almost the same in all other major cities of the country as well as district towns. The nightmarish experience of commuting has its ill effects on health and mind.
Even after the addition of so many flyovers, the expressway and the metro rail to the city's communication network, traffic movement has not improved; rather become more chaotic at times. How will the nation thrive economically when all its communication veins and arteries get clogged right at its heart - the capital? Too many vehicles ranging from expensive luxurious private cars to rundown trucks, shabby buses, and even slow-moving pedal rickshaws ply the narrow streets side by side. Few of the vehicles' drivers bother about obeying traffic rules and maintaining designated lanes.
As if to exacerbate the situation further, fresh retarding elements are being added to the caravan of assorted vehicles. A huge number of improvised vehicles like locally made battery rickshaws and auto-rickshaws have been pressed into service. Desperate movements by these three-wheelers have greatly increased the risk of road accidents. Ride-sharing motorbikes, now an indicator of youth unemployment, are parked haphazardly at road crossings, further aggravating traffic movement. Parking of private cars and long haul inter-district buses on important roads is an old issue yet to be addressed. Another factor leading to further slowing down of vehicles is the jaywalking by the pedestrians partly for a lack of awareness and partly for absence of footpaths.
While all these are important factors behind the intolerable traffic congestion, their root remains in the extremely centralised administration and economic activities. Higher education and healthcare facilities are also highly concentrated in the capital city. It is because of these that we have got a city bulging at the seams with a burgeoning population already several times its capacity to accommodate. The city has already become unliveable and now looks destined to collapse under its own weight. Due to faulty development plans administrative offices, industries, business houses, educational institutions, healthcare outlets are overly concentrated in the capital. As a result, anybody - from a day labourer to an educated youth - finds the city promising with better chances of livelihoods. Even beggars, pickpockets, muggers and extortionists find it a lucrative destination for fortune hunting. Destitute people also find no other places to try their luck. This asymmetrical development of the city has spurred rural-city mass exodus. There are also the internal climate refugees, a large number of whom converge on the city to eke out a living. The more is the concentration of people in the city, the greater the demand for vehicles for movement.
The ruinous economic, socio-psychological and environmental impacts of this unbearable situation are simply horrifying. The Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha informs that the country loses over 8.2 million working hours every day due to the gridlock. On the other hand, the BUET-run Accident Research Institute estimates that traffic congestion costs the economy $6.5 billion a year in lost productivity, fuel wastage and health expenditure. Thus the round-the-year traffic congestion is no longer a communication and transport issue only; it has become a tremendous barrier to the country's economic growth and development. Traffic jam is not only an obstacle to quick export-import business but also to speedy movement of workforce, industrial raw materials, and finished products and commodities. It also discourages foreign investment.
The relatively easier steps that can help free streets from gridlock are strict enforcement of traffic rules, withdrawal of unfit vehicles from roads, stopping issuance of fitness certificates to unfit vehicles, designating separate lanes for different types of vehicles etc. But such measures can only bring temporary and partial relief. Only a sustainable solution involving strategic plans can really remove the obstacle to economic growth. Completion of the elevated expressway and the Eastern Bypass as well as implementation of the remaining MRT lines will greatly ease movement in the city. Another long-term measure is to widen the existing streets, which is next to impossible in this city of haphazard and spontaneous expansion. This can be done in some parts of the city through implementation of multi-storeyed block housing schemes in place of plot housing plans. Circular rail service could be another option. Last but not least, there is the issue of decentralisation of administrative apparatuses, the judiciary, industries, and institutions of tertiary level of education and healthcare services. But implementation of such schemes is time-consuming and much beyond the current financial capacity of the country. Over several decades, traffic problems have been allowed to worsen to a gargantuan proportion. Consequently, the country's economy will continue to bleed for an indefinite period. However, under a comprehensive plan the situation can be change for the better in phases. Let the urban planners devise a plan to be equal to the task.
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