Private cars use the Dhaka Elevated Expressway as it opened to traffic on Sunday, a day after its inauguration. The photo was taken in Kakoli area of the city at 11:20am. — FE photo by KAZ Sumon As the Dhaka Elevated Expressway opened partially to the public on Sunday, Dhakaites were very happy as they now can avoid hour-long notorious traffic from the Dhaka airport-to-Farmgate stretch that had plagued them for years.
"There's nothing better than this," said Arafat Jaigirdar, an employee at a multinational company.
"It allows us to cover 11 kilometres in just 10 minutes," Arafat told the FE, as he headed toward the Banani ramp from Kawla near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA).
A resident of Uttara, Arafat used to lose an hour and a half every day commuting to his Mohakhali office.
Mohammad Sobur Khan, a rental car driver, expressed his enthusiasm for the expressway, saying they would certainly take the route as it would significantly reduce fuel costs as well as travel time.
"A litre of fuel is nothing when an air-conditioned vehicle is stuck in traffic for half an hour," he recounted the miseries on Dhaka airport road.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the elevated expressway, the country's first large-scale infrastructure project under a public-private partnership (PPP) model, on Saturday.
To the public, it was opened at 6 am on Sunday from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to Farmgate, allowing traffic to enter from Kawla near the airport, Kuril, Banani and Tejgaon to head in both directions.
There are a total of seven entry and exit points - Kawla, Kuril, Banani, Mohakhali and Farmgate.
This correspondent visited the Tejgaon and Kawla ramps shortly after the expressway's opening and found that traffic congestion was more pronounced from the airport in the morning and Tejgaon side in the evening, primarily due to the rush of office-goers.
Besides, airport passengers and Bangladesh Biman crews were among the enthusiastic users of the infrastructure on the first day of the opening.
The private partner of the project, Italian-Thai Development Public Company (ITD), expressed satisfaction with the traffic received on the first day from its four entrance points of Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DEE).
Syed Emdad, a senior engineer of the first DEE Company Limited, owned by ITD, said that they had received 15,000 vehicles in the first 14 hours.
According to data as of 7 pm Sunday, some 13,165 vehicles had used the expressway, and tolls totalling Tk 1.1 million were collected.
ITD Managing Director Bhaskon Khannabha, while sharing his feelings about the expressway opening over the phone, expressed satisfaction with the traffic volume but mentioned that, as people are not yet aware of the entrance and exit ramps, they faced almost no issues on the first day.
"As many commuters were unfamiliar with the entrance and exit routes, the first day's operation did not meet our expectations. Therefore, we need to put up more signs," he said, adding that they have identified some minor areas of concern in the operation.
The expressway primarily saw a large number of private cars, microbuses and jeeps on the first day. Some university and staff buses also utilised it from both directions.
Since trucks and covered vans are not allowed in the city during the day, officials believe that the expressway is unlikely to attract heavy vehicles at this stage of its partial opening, as its primary benefit lies in providing connectivity within the city.
Although office-goers could cover the 11.5 km in 10 minutes, the FE found during the morning rush hour that most vehicles took more than half an hour to traverse the Farmgate area, including Karwan Bazaar, due to the additional traffic pressure from Uttara.
Previously, they used to travel through Mohakhali and Pragati Sarani.
The DEE is the country's first elevated expressway constructed under the PPP model, with the Bangladesh Bridge Authority as the public partner and the Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited as the private partner.
While the concessionaire agreement was signed to construct the 19.73 km elevated road in three and a half years, full-fledged construction began on January 1, 2020. After two years and eight months, the company, along with its two shareholders, completed 11.5 km.
Upon completion, the Dhaka Elevated Expressway will stretch from Kawla to the Kutubkhali area of the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, passing through Kuril, Banani, Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Moghbazar, Kamalapur, Sayedabad and Jatrabari.
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