Heavy traffic chokes highways

Heavy traffic is choking roads and highways as people are heading out of Dhaka and Chittagong cities to spend Eid-ul-Azha holidays back in their native homes. Long queues of stranded vehicles in gridlocks could be seen in many places on Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Mawa highways on Thursday night. The Eid passengers suffered to no end as traffic congestion continued from morning until 11pm on these highways. ‘It took more than three hours to cover a distance of only 5 kilometres in Gazipur on Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway. Though the congestion eased on Thursday evening, it again started aggravating at night,’ the highway police said. The gridlock spread over 20km area to Chandana-Chourasta, Bhogra bypass, Konabarhi to Chandra in Kaliakoir in Gazipur district. In Comilla, vehicles are crawling at several stretches on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway. As the day started with heavy traffic, movements of vehicles were slow at various points. The situation has been further aggravated by the drivers’ tendency to overtake. Mainamati Highway Police Station SI Mohmmad Enamul Haque said, ‘There's traffic pressure at various places in a 70 kilometre stretch on the highway from Comilla’s Alekharchar to Daudkandi.’ Highway East ASP Shoilen Chakma said ‘The pressure of traffic is very high in some places on the highway.’ The situation is same on Dhaka-Mawa highway. Long queues of vehicles were seen at different parts of the highway. A large number of vehicles were moving onto the highways from the branch roads, sudden increase in vehicular traffic on the highway and slow movement of cattle-loaded trucks were contributing to the congestion, police said. Apart from that, potholes had formed in different points of the highway and the vehicles were allowed to ply only one-way to facilitate the ongoing repairs, according to a news agency.