Ensuring sustainable mobility in Dhaka
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Mohiuddin Babar
THE city of Dhaka offers a dreadful spectacle. This comment would sound quite harsh but it has all grains of an undeniable truth. The legendary charm of this city that once sprawled on gardens and pools of water bodies is now almost a fairy tale. Traders and missionaries from the west and the east who fell in romance with this city hundreds of years ago, would run into immediate oblivion should they be ever reincarnated. The epicenter of all these disgust is the traffic jam in the city which now seems to have crossed all limits of tolerance.
It has become almost ritual to discuss about easing or solving Dhaka's traffic jam. From high government level to civil society, from regulatory level to experts and from media to think tanks, the topic assumes significant dominance in all forums. However, the problem keeps on rolling and growing in intensity with no hint of any solution in sight.
It is quite obvious that cities will grow in size and population. However, the city of Dhaka has been witnessing a phenomenal growth in population which does not mathematically match with the growth in size and more particularly, the development of infrastructure. With the independence of the country and Dhaka assuming the role of being the capital, it attracted concentration of all political, administrative, social, judicial and economic activities. However, lack of prudence amongst the city planners and regulators has let loose a sporadic growth in residential dwellings and commercial establishments with no regard to corresponding development of infrastructure. As a result, the carrying capacity of the city has been overridden and an unmanageable situation has been created in all aspects including roads, civic amenities and supply of water, gas and electricity.
One thing is crystal clear that our city planners, more particularly the authorities responsible for designing and maintaining the capital city, totally failed in their tasks. Either they lacked the built-in capacities or that they were obsessed with a "couldn't care" attitude. Such authorities need to be morally and physically equipped to foresee and act accordingly.
According to experts and observers, the fundamental causes for the traffic jam in Dhaka are continuous migration of people, unchecked addition of new vehicles and acute dearth of road network. Though the population has increased over ten times during the last three decades, network of road and streets has not increased correspondingly. As such, this has attributed to the mammoth growth of traffic jam.
One of the major reasons for influx of people into Dhaka has been the establishment of readymade garments industries. It was absolutely an imprudent decision to house thousands of labour intensive industries within the city. These industries contribute immensely to the hindrance of normal flow of traffic in the capital, besides the growth of tens of thousands of slums to house the low paid workers.
It is quite incomprehensible to note the emerging ideas for solving the traffic mess in Dhaka. Honestly, they look like quite utopian and far from the ground realities. No wonder modern solutions like flyover, mono rail, underground rail and so forth are quite worthy but they do not match with our current economic strengths. Further, these are good as long term solutions and indeed, they are time consuming projects besides the huge costs. We need to look at projects that would be economically viable at this moment and which could bring some ease at the earliest. One such immediate solution or at least an earlier solution could be to build as many one way overpasses at the four road crossings as well as over the points of rail crossings. These will ensure continuity in traffic flow.
Another suggestion could be the use of the current railway track from Tongi to Kamalapur. Shuttle services between these two points can immensely ease the traffic load on the road. By building passenger bay at Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Maghbazar, Malibagh and Khilgaon for stoppages of the shuttle services, a huge load of commuters can be benefited.
There have been much talk about the traffic nuisance in Dhaka. There have been some overexcited plans and actions taken too. These included the water taxi service using the Turag and Buriganga rivers; school bus schemes; changing operating hours for schools, offices and banks etc. Unfortunately nothing seemed to have worked. There should be an end to this culture of trial and error method.
It is pertinent to jumpstart a solution to the traffic menace in Dhaka. The root cause analyses have been done well but there aren't any visible signs of remedial actions. The intolerable traffic jams are not only causing delays, irritations and productivity losses, they are also contributing to health hazards and environmental decay the cost of which will be staggering in future. Above all, the current traffic jam scenario poses a serious threat to sustainable mobility without which the blueprint of our socio-economic goals could be blurred.
The author is a free lancer and can be reached at e-mail : babar.mohiuddin@gmail.com
THE city of Dhaka offers a dreadful spectacle. This comment would sound quite harsh but it has all grains of an undeniable truth. The legendary charm of this city that once sprawled on gardens and pools of water bodies is now almost a fairy tale. Traders and missionaries from the west and the east who fell in romance with this city hundreds of years ago, would run into immediate oblivion should they be ever reincarnated. The epicenter of all these disgust is the traffic jam in the city which now seems to have crossed all limits of tolerance.
It has become almost ritual to discuss about easing or solving Dhaka's traffic jam. From high government level to civil society, from regulatory level to experts and from media to think tanks, the topic assumes significant dominance in all forums. However, the problem keeps on rolling and growing in intensity with no hint of any solution in sight.
It is quite obvious that cities will grow in size and population. However, the city of Dhaka has been witnessing a phenomenal growth in population which does not mathematically match with the growth in size and more particularly, the development of infrastructure. With the independence of the country and Dhaka assuming the role of being the capital, it attracted concentration of all political, administrative, social, judicial and economic activities. However, lack of prudence amongst the city planners and regulators has let loose a sporadic growth in residential dwellings and commercial establishments with no regard to corresponding development of infrastructure. As a result, the carrying capacity of the city has been overridden and an unmanageable situation has been created in all aspects including roads, civic amenities and supply of water, gas and electricity.
One thing is crystal clear that our city planners, more particularly the authorities responsible for designing and maintaining the capital city, totally failed in their tasks. Either they lacked the built-in capacities or that they were obsessed with a "couldn't care" attitude. Such authorities need to be morally and physically equipped to foresee and act accordingly.
According to experts and observers, the fundamental causes for the traffic jam in Dhaka are continuous migration of people, unchecked addition of new vehicles and acute dearth of road network. Though the population has increased over ten times during the last three decades, network of road and streets has not increased correspondingly. As such, this has attributed to the mammoth growth of traffic jam.
One of the major reasons for influx of people into Dhaka has been the establishment of readymade garments industries. It was absolutely an imprudent decision to house thousands of labour intensive industries within the city. These industries contribute immensely to the hindrance of normal flow of traffic in the capital, besides the growth of tens of thousands of slums to house the low paid workers.
It is quite incomprehensible to note the emerging ideas for solving the traffic mess in Dhaka. Honestly, they look like quite utopian and far from the ground realities. No wonder modern solutions like flyover, mono rail, underground rail and so forth are quite worthy but they do not match with our current economic strengths. Further, these are good as long term solutions and indeed, they are time consuming projects besides the huge costs. We need to look at projects that would be economically viable at this moment and which could bring some ease at the earliest. One such immediate solution or at least an earlier solution could be to build as many one way overpasses at the four road crossings as well as over the points of rail crossings. These will ensure continuity in traffic flow.
Another suggestion could be the use of the current railway track from Tongi to Kamalapur. Shuttle services between these two points can immensely ease the traffic load on the road. By building passenger bay at Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Maghbazar, Malibagh and Khilgaon for stoppages of the shuttle services, a huge load of commuters can be benefited.
There have been much talk about the traffic nuisance in Dhaka. There have been some overexcited plans and actions taken too. These included the water taxi service using the Turag and Buriganga rivers; school bus schemes; changing operating hours for schools, offices and banks etc. Unfortunately nothing seemed to have worked. There should be an end to this culture of trial and error method.
It is pertinent to jumpstart a solution to the traffic menace in Dhaka. The root cause analyses have been done well but there aren't any visible signs of remedial actions. The intolerable traffic jams are not only causing delays, irritations and productivity losses, they are also contributing to health hazards and environmental decay the cost of which will be staggering in future. Above all, the current traffic jam scenario poses a serious threat to sustainable mobility without which the blueprint of our socio-economic goals could be blurred.
The author is a free lancer and can be reached at e-mail : babar.mohiuddin@gmail.com