Chaos in the transport sector of capital city
Engineer Shafiqul Alam | Wednesday, 2 July 2008
WITH the increase in the size of the population and the number of surface transport, the traffic movement becomes difficult in a mega-city. That's why the city planners and transportation engineers of other cities have been engaged in solving this major problem for many years. England was more practical and in 1863, a 4 km stretch of subway was in operation there. After that they have modified and increased networks beneath the ground to ease traffic movement. Then the other cities had started to work on metro rail. Later on monorail was invented as a light rail concept that can carry fewer passengers at less speed than metro rail. The last one in this context is sky-train, which was introduced in the 1970s also as a mode of LRT.
Due to less capacity for transporting passengers and also being aesthetically unacceptable neither monorail nor sky-train did get the popularity. Moreover, in case of any accident, sky-train or monorail runs the risk of falling on the roads killing a large number of passengers. There is the elevated expressway as well but the functions of the mass transit and expressway are not similar.
To remove traffic congestion of Dhaka city, a local firm came up with a unique solution in 2002. That is about an underground metro rail. The firm announced it through a press conference addressing the ministry of communications. Later on, the ministry of communications asked the railway to float an international tender and subsequently the railway called a tender for establishing subway system through private sector participation, where the local firm in question became the lowest bidder. But due to the absence of proper guidelines, the tender was held up till 2004.
In the later part of 2004 (15th September), Bangladesh private infrastructure guideline was published in the form of gazette notification. In the mean time, the so-called BCL (Bangladesh Consultants Ltd.), in association with the World Bank, came up with a basket of projects -- called STP in 2004 that includes BRT, elevated expressway, link roads, sky-train and then metro rail system. They have spent Tk.150 million under the supervision of Louis Bereger of America. Initially they proposed dedicated bus service routes, then sky-train (LRT) with some link roads, elevated expressway and finally metro rail by TBM. The total package was worth Tk. 365 billion and is sill the same. What is surprising about such experts is that they can change their hue and shape at any time.
Meanwhile, they revised their plan twice, or thrice depending on the conditions of the Government Order (GO) on the metro rail proposed by the local firm. After spending such a large amount of money on feasibility study, recently STP and their associates have declared that we need neither subway nor expressway. However, most surprising aspect of the STP is why did they spend Tk.150 million at all?
However the government of Bangladesh had approved the subway project submitted by a local firm based on the tender of January 2002, which is under the process of implementation. The honourable Chief Adviser has also emphasised mass transport (underground), depending on various factors. Later on, the finance adviser had also declared the processing of mass transit in his budget and mentioned about the possibility of introducing metro rail.
Actually only to jeopardise the credentials of that local firm, some brought STP to the front and argued against metro rail. But statistics show that the construction of subway has expanded rapidly in the last 20-25 years. Mega-city report highlights urban planning (published 26th January 2007, source: The Engineer online, research conducted by 522 decision-makers from 25 global metropolis in association with Siemens)..........70 per cent of the decision-makers had suggested mass transport to save the environment, ease congestion and lessen pressure on fuel. 71 per cent had emphasised the PPP (private-public-partnership) or (Build Operate Transfer (BOT), Build, Operate, Own and Transfer (BOOT), etc., for implementation of the project.
The capital is nearly unlivable due to the wrong decisions made by our urban planners...still now they are providing wrong information. Constructing fly-over at Mahakhali, widening pedestrians, beautification etc. are the wrong outcome from our planners. Normally, the road divider is transferable to other cities depending on the traffic flow, whereas in Dhaka the dividers are fixed and day by day those are becoming wider eating up valuable road space! Some planners suggest that most of the city dwellers walk but the suggestion is not tenable, since the people walk because of congestion and lack of comfortable transport mode. The auto-rickshaw drivers are not willing to move along all the roads, which is a major problem. In this context, the planners are guilty of congestion. For how did they approve or recommend high-rise buildings without the provision of underground parking? It was a simple basic. Oddly though, those planners are now vocal against metro, but once again they are taking the wrong path. One may recall how we had missed the opportunity of free optical fibre line due to a clumsy decision and now we are paying the price!
Why is the construction of metro tunnel expensive in America?...The answer is TBM and grandiose station set-up. They use TBM because of the labour cost, which is almost 5-10 dollars per hour whereas in Dhaka, it is 2.0 to 3.0 dollars for the whole day. This is the reason that they use TBM instead of Cut & Cover. In America after payment of a large amount of money, the cost of Cut & Cover would be same as TBM. As the labour is cheap, the metro rail would be very much feasible by Cut & Cover method.
We need metro rail first at the shallow depth, then some expressways to facilitate the movement of highway buses and private cars. The congestion would be removed, the environment would be safe day by day and the people would live in the suburban areas, which would lessen the load in Dhaka metropolis. After that, tax should be imposed on cars during the peak hours. With the introduction of metro rail, the walking habit of people would grow as they would get a metro station within a distance of 1 km or less.
The writer can be contacted at email: [email protected]
Due to less capacity for transporting passengers and also being aesthetically unacceptable neither monorail nor sky-train did get the popularity. Moreover, in case of any accident, sky-train or monorail runs the risk of falling on the roads killing a large number of passengers. There is the elevated expressway as well but the functions of the mass transit and expressway are not similar.
To remove traffic congestion of Dhaka city, a local firm came up with a unique solution in 2002. That is about an underground metro rail. The firm announced it through a press conference addressing the ministry of communications. Later on, the ministry of communications asked the railway to float an international tender and subsequently the railway called a tender for establishing subway system through private sector participation, where the local firm in question became the lowest bidder. But due to the absence of proper guidelines, the tender was held up till 2004.
In the later part of 2004 (15th September), Bangladesh private infrastructure guideline was published in the form of gazette notification. In the mean time, the so-called BCL (Bangladesh Consultants Ltd.), in association with the World Bank, came up with a basket of projects -- called STP in 2004 that includes BRT, elevated expressway, link roads, sky-train and then metro rail system. They have spent Tk.150 million under the supervision of Louis Bereger of America. Initially they proposed dedicated bus service routes, then sky-train (LRT) with some link roads, elevated expressway and finally metro rail by TBM. The total package was worth Tk. 365 billion and is sill the same. What is surprising about such experts is that they can change their hue and shape at any time.
Meanwhile, they revised their plan twice, or thrice depending on the conditions of the Government Order (GO) on the metro rail proposed by the local firm. After spending such a large amount of money on feasibility study, recently STP and their associates have declared that we need neither subway nor expressway. However, most surprising aspect of the STP is why did they spend Tk.150 million at all?
However the government of Bangladesh had approved the subway project submitted by a local firm based on the tender of January 2002, which is under the process of implementation. The honourable Chief Adviser has also emphasised mass transport (underground), depending on various factors. Later on, the finance adviser had also declared the processing of mass transit in his budget and mentioned about the possibility of introducing metro rail.
Actually only to jeopardise the credentials of that local firm, some brought STP to the front and argued against metro rail. But statistics show that the construction of subway has expanded rapidly in the last 20-25 years. Mega-city report highlights urban planning (published 26th January 2007, source: The Engineer online, research conducted by 522 decision-makers from 25 global metropolis in association with Siemens)..........70 per cent of the decision-makers had suggested mass transport to save the environment, ease congestion and lessen pressure on fuel. 71 per cent had emphasised the PPP (private-public-partnership) or (Build Operate Transfer (BOT), Build, Operate, Own and Transfer (BOOT), etc., for implementation of the project.
The capital is nearly unlivable due to the wrong decisions made by our urban planners...still now they are providing wrong information. Constructing fly-over at Mahakhali, widening pedestrians, beautification etc. are the wrong outcome from our planners. Normally, the road divider is transferable to other cities depending on the traffic flow, whereas in Dhaka the dividers are fixed and day by day those are becoming wider eating up valuable road space! Some planners suggest that most of the city dwellers walk but the suggestion is not tenable, since the people walk because of congestion and lack of comfortable transport mode. The auto-rickshaw drivers are not willing to move along all the roads, which is a major problem. In this context, the planners are guilty of congestion. For how did they approve or recommend high-rise buildings without the provision of underground parking? It was a simple basic. Oddly though, those planners are now vocal against metro, but once again they are taking the wrong path. One may recall how we had missed the opportunity of free optical fibre line due to a clumsy decision and now we are paying the price!
Why is the construction of metro tunnel expensive in America?...The answer is TBM and grandiose station set-up. They use TBM because of the labour cost, which is almost 5-10 dollars per hour whereas in Dhaka, it is 2.0 to 3.0 dollars for the whole day. This is the reason that they use TBM instead of Cut & Cover. In America after payment of a large amount of money, the cost of Cut & Cover would be same as TBM. As the labour is cheap, the metro rail would be very much feasible by Cut & Cover method.
We need metro rail first at the shallow depth, then some expressways to facilitate the movement of highway buses and private cars. The congestion would be removed, the environment would be safe day by day and the people would live in the suburban areas, which would lessen the load in Dhaka metropolis. After that, tax should be imposed on cars during the peak hours. With the introduction of metro rail, the walking habit of people would grow as they would get a metro station within a distance of 1 km or less.
The writer can be contacted at email: [email protected]