20-yr plan review after lapse of five years

The 20-year transport plan for the mega city will be revised in a gap of five years to identify lapses and deviations in executing the proposed options.
With this, the strategic transport plan (STP) will be revised twice since the first plan was prepared in 2005 and approved in 2009.
All mass transit systems-mass rapid transit (MRT) and bus rapid transit (BRT), expressway and circular road-are in the process under the plan.
Sources said both the first and revised STPs faced deviations from the proposed transport options and guidelines which were not abided by agencies like the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha.
The Bangladesh Bridges Authority and the Bangladesh Railway have also been working on developing subway networks and a circular rail engaging huge investment beyond the 20-year city plan, they added.
The last two STPs, formulated by the World Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), had weaknesses to address the mass transportation system and multimodal system in the planning.
"Some changes have also been found in the plan after doing feasibility studies on some proposed transport options under the revised STP (RSTP)," said a source.
"Besides, subway and circular rail-like mega transport ideas have been under consideration of the government which is also needed to review."
The RSTP did not address railway and waterway modes of transport as well as plan for other suburban areas, he commented.
The first STP suggested three MRT and three BRT lines, but the RSTP recommended five MRT and two BRT lines.
The Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) has recently found another MRT feasible while studying on BRT line-07.
The RSTP proposed building expressways and circular roads, but progress in four MRTs is visible so far.
A BRT project and Dhaka Elevated Expressway is still to be completed years after construction began.
The implementation of the STP actually began in 2009 after it was approved by the cabinet.
It was planned for the 2004-2025 period. The implementation time for the RSTP was 2015-2035.
The DTCA has already talked to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and finalised the terms of reference (ToR) to carry out the next strategic plan.
An ADB mission this week sat with the DTCA officials several times to fix the areas of working.
According to the ToR, the next plan will cover traffic management, multimodal transport, freight transport, railway and water transport, and recommend screening mechanism of STP and guideline for its violation.
As the traffic data for the RSTP has been obsolete, it is also proposed for fresh studies for macro-level economic and social data, including progress in urbanisation and new residential site development, traffic model analysis, regulatory and policy framework for bus management system.

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