This paper in a front-page photograph published on October 01 showed a policeman realising fine from a motorcyclist found guilty of riding on the footpath in front of Ramna Park. Indeed this is a rare occasion of penalising a biker for violation of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) rule by the police. In most cases, the bikers using footpaths remain untouched by the law enforcers.
Motorcyclists in Dhaka city, in fact, continue to dominate footpaths despite a ban imposed by the DMP about two years ago. The DMP ban aims at ensuring public safety in view of the reckless riding of motorbikes in footpaths. The traffic managers appear to be helpless to prevent bikers, most of whom are young people, from plying at jet speed.
According to an estimate, more than 1.0 million motorcycles ply across the country without registration from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). This illegal practice not only poses serious threat to public safety but results in heavy loss of revenue earnings. On the other hand, a motorbike rider without helmet often carries two persons on his back in utter violation of traffic rule. It is not also rare that a person on the back is a woman, sometimes found clinching one or two of her children.
As per rule, a rider can carry one person in his motorcycle but the accompanying man or woman must also wear helmet. But the rule is hardly followed.
Last year the traffic authority had arranged sale of helmets to the bikers at different points in the city. The traffic men with stocks of helmets kept watch on the passing motorcycles and halted the bare-headed riders and pursued them to buy one. If a motorcycle rider could not pay for a helmet on the spot for want of money he was, however, allowed to go for the time being. Actually the authority could ensure wearing of helmets if it was made mandatory for the dealers not to sell motorcycles without helmets.
Now comes the question of speed control of the motorcycles. No rule seems to work here nor a traffic man can enforce it. The way a motorcycle, invariably at top speed, sneaks through the speeding vehicles and proceeds like a hurricane is simply frightening. The exact number of motorcycles plying in city roads is not known. An unofficial estimate, however, puts the figure at 0.8 million.
Now turning to the city's overall traffic management, the road users to their dismay, find that with each passing day tailbacks in Dhaka city is going from bad to worse as measures so far taken by the authorities concerned are quite inadequate to overcome the crisis. The people are accustomed to hear about application of newer methods to resolve the nagging problem which is taking heavy toll not only on citizens' free movement but also causing colossal loss in terms of working hours and hampering all other commercial activities.
The number one problem relating to traffic jam, however, lies in plying of vehicles nearly five times higher than the capacity of roads in the metropolis. According to a dependable estimate, the city roads are capable to bear the pressure of 0.15 million automobiles. The BRTA has issued licences to about 0.75 million automobiles. In addition, nearly 0.2 million vehicles from outside ply city roads every day. This is another reason for traffic mess.
As we mentioned earlier in this column that several other major causes of acute tailbacks, such as wayside parking of vehicles at busy points, reckless driving and frequent violation of traffic rules remain unresolved. The traffic authority always blames lack of manpower and logistics for dealing with city's gridlock.
But it is common knowledge that one or two simple steps may improve the situation dramatically which does not require additional manpower nor elaborate logistics - but a strong will. Wayside parking is one such problem that can be tackled quite easily. Long queues of automobiles are always found parked beside the thoroughfares in peak hours causing intolerable traffic jam.
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