Walkways not for pedestrians

The first priority specified in the 20-year urban transport policy for pedestrians has been totally overlooked in Dhaka city's road-transport planning.

Resultantly, it rendered the people's right to walk highly hazardous and insecure, critics have said.

Pedestrians, they pointed out, face the highest risk as they become victim in some two-thirds of all vehicle-related collisions on the jammed city thoroughfares.

The strategic transport policy (STP), the first of its kind, was prepared way back in 2004 and approved in 2008. It prioritized passers-by in view of the risk of their life.

But, critics said, instead of focusing on the pedestrians on a priority basis, the authorities concerned allowed building 'extortion den' of billions of taka on the existing footpaths.

This perversion of policy has been done by obstructing people's prime thoroughfare for walking to make their daily trip, they observed.

They said pedestrians' walk facilities like footpath, foot over- bridges, underpass etc are also being constructed without proper study and design.

As a result, traffic experts said, these facilities were located in wrong structures and wrong places without considering comfortable movement of people--elderly people and children in particular.

"Pedestrians are like orphans as there is none to take care of their comfort and satisfaction," says Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, one of the STP authors.

He said earning from footpath is so profitable that no agencies do show interest to introduce facilities for pedestrians though doing so involves low cost.

Also a transport expert and critics, Prof Jamilur Reza said it was the government's responsibility to consider pedestrian first in policy since it adopted the STP as transportation policy.

It is the responsibility of the twin Dhaka City Corporations (DCCs), Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakhya (RAJUK) to carry out road development and construction under transportation-related projects in the city.

But none of these agencies has considered the aspect of pedestrians during planning road construction and transportation projects in and on outskirts of the city.

Rather they allowed construction of foot over-bridges blocking people's smooth movement on the footpaths, setting up advertisement boards etc on the walkways.

Professor Shamsul Haque of Civil Engineering Department of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology said for lack of pedestrian-first-priority perception in project planning, people lost two comparably pedestrian-friendly foot over-bridges at Jatrabari and Maghbazar crossroads.

The two over-bridges were dismantled for flyover construction and there have not been arranged any alternatives so far.    

The DCC had constructed diagonal foot-over-bridge facility over the Maghbazar and Jatrabari intersections to facilitate people to cross the busy crossroads after riding onto it from any corner.

"But, in other cases, the DCC foot over-bridges force pedestrians to ride at least two rides on the bridges or cross road more than once to reach their destination," he said.

In the STP, factors like absence of contiguous footpaths (frequent ups and downs from it), badly designed pedestrian routes and crossings, low visibility of crossing, absence of arrangement for easy movement of disabled persons, lack of pedestrian education and poor driver awareness of the rules of the road indicate lacking of pedestrian-priority policy.

Lack of recognition that transit passengers are also pedestrians at both the beginning and the end of their trips is also identified as a lacking.

According to a Japan International Cooperation Agency study done in 2010, some 23 million trips are made in the city daily--4.1 million of those done by walking.

A recent study done under the Dhaka Mass Transit Development project found 55 per cent of the total trips on Uttara-Saidabad corridor were made by walking and non-motorized transport.

Under the DCC, nearly 165 kilometres of footpath were constructed in south and northern parts of the city.

But the critics claim that 90 per cent have been occupied by vendors and small traders in exchange for Tk 50 to 500 paid regularly to different quarters, including cops and leaders having affiliation with political parties-mainly ruling party.

A trader in the Bitul Mukarram area told the FE that sometimes a trader pays Tk 500,000 to get a space to place a bench or table for setting up shop on the footpath in the areas where demand is quite high.

It is also learnt that many small traders have returned to footpath-based trading by renting the DCC-allotted shops in hawkers' markets.

Footpath trading has become a major income-generating place for migrant people for which massive encroachment nowadays continued through grabbing parts of the streets, the observers said.

In front of Ideal School and Awami League office, small traders even have come down from footpath by occupying streets.

A DCC South planning official refuted the allegation of not taking pedestrians into account in planning.

He said, "Requirements like uninterrupted movement and comfort of pedestrians are considered and for this DCC has shifted construction of foot over-bridges from concrete to steel and erected shed over-bridges to save people from scorching sun and heavy rain."

Although the DCC gets the footpath from the RAJUK after construction, it had constructed significant portions of the footpaths before RAJUK was made footpath-construction authority.

Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority is supposed to focus pedestrian-first priority being the implementing agency of the STP. But, he deplored, the DTCA has done nothing in this regard.

An official of the DTCA, however, blamed it all on inadequate manpower to implement various features of the STP.

But he said pedestrian first priority has been ensured in the mass transport system, including the Mass Rapid Transit Line-6 and Bus Rapid Transit-3.

Pedestrians are blamed for jaywalking every now and then, causing frequent accidents in the city streets.

But the government's drive to force pedestrians to use foot over-bridges that began last month met with harsh criticisms for negligence of the authorities concerned towards providing different facilities.

They also faced criticism for conducting the drives against pedestrians without freeing footpaths, zebra crossings and ensuring security of people in using underpasses.

Transport expert Prof Jamilur Reza said for lack of good facilities for walking and freestyle encroachment of footpaths, pedestrians are forced to walk on the road and, therefore, subjected to unnecessarily high risks of injuries. This cannot continue.

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