Solving the city's traffic problem
Engineer Shafiqul Alam | Saturday, 30 August 2008
TRANSPORT is an important element in determining not only the city's efficiency, but also its sustainability. While most of the cities regularly vie to build the tallest building, they pay much less attention to smart and energy-efficient infrastructures that minimize the ecological damage and wastage. Dhaka is not an exception to this.
Dhaka is one of the most ill-planned cities in the world, where the population has been rising constantly for last one or two decades, but the infrastructures needed to cope with the situation have never been developed. Commuters get locked in jam and lose temper regularly. Commuting in Dhaka by local bus is not only challenging but it is also like in a battle field. The conductors and drivers are reckless showing no respect for the passengers at all. People get exhausted very early in the morning and lose all their energy to do something good at their workplace.
It is impossible to quantify either in terms of time or money the loss faced by the city dwellers due to congestion, but the scenario gives an idea of the collective misery. The local public buses move whimsically here and there making the travel difficult. People have to wait for indefinite time in queue to get in a bus but the situation is worse for the people who have to get in from the middle of the road.
People having sound income try to avoid the hassles of buses and use auto-rickshaws or cabs instead. But those are very seldom available on proper track for any use of the travellers. Those who live very close to their workplace use rickshaws, but travelling by rickshaws is also difficult due to congestion on the roads.
However, cities are for the people. They are not just engines of economic growth but also of social development. And it is also for those who should help develop healthy environment. To achieve this end, it is necessary to be more proactive. Tokyo is a concrete example. How is Tokyo avoiding unending jams with a population of over 13 million? It is the subway, which carries 7.2 million of passengers daily and does it safely, quickly and on time.
What we need in Dhaka is a fast moving mass transport system first. The next step would be to restrict the private cars not only to remove congestion and save the city's environment, but also to reduce wastage of fuel. This scribe thinks that the issue of wastage of fuel was never thought practically. A few days back, the writer was going to a place 185 km away from Dhaka city. So, gas worth Taka 350 was enough to reach the destination from the outskirts of Dhaka. Strangely, in Dhaka that amount of gas cannot take us even to a 60-km ride. This is a normal phenomenon year after year.
In spite of all the sufferings the public is going through, the planners are still misguiding the government and asking them to take short-term measures.
It is in everyone's knowledge that Holy Ramadan comes every year. Why then impossible tasks are being attempted to be done partially or periodically in this particular month? Why are we not going for a permanent solution?
For no reason some quarters misguide the people of Dhaka saying that people of New York are not using metro or they don't love to use it. But Urban Transportation Fact Book suggests that the 7.0 million residents of the New York boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens take nearly five million trips a day on the city's subway system. The 2.1 million Ville de Paris residents take four million daily trips on the Metro. In Hong Kong, daily travel by rail transit is more than three million. The residents of London take more than four million daily trips by the Underground.
The decision of changing the timing of schools, etc., is not justified considering the nature of the main problem.
Using bus for the schools in the residential areas would not ease the problem; rather it would aggravate the situation. Unending jams can be removed, only by way of introducing subway. Government should not again spend money on CCTV, signalling system, etc. Rather they should work on an experimental basis and go for the proven track, which, for all practical purposes, is the subway.
The writer can be reached at
E-mail: [email protected]
Dhaka is one of the most ill-planned cities in the world, where the population has been rising constantly for last one or two decades, but the infrastructures needed to cope with the situation have never been developed. Commuters get locked in jam and lose temper regularly. Commuting in Dhaka by local bus is not only challenging but it is also like in a battle field. The conductors and drivers are reckless showing no respect for the passengers at all. People get exhausted very early in the morning and lose all their energy to do something good at their workplace.
It is impossible to quantify either in terms of time or money the loss faced by the city dwellers due to congestion, but the scenario gives an idea of the collective misery. The local public buses move whimsically here and there making the travel difficult. People have to wait for indefinite time in queue to get in a bus but the situation is worse for the people who have to get in from the middle of the road.
People having sound income try to avoid the hassles of buses and use auto-rickshaws or cabs instead. But those are very seldom available on proper track for any use of the travellers. Those who live very close to their workplace use rickshaws, but travelling by rickshaws is also difficult due to congestion on the roads.
However, cities are for the people. They are not just engines of economic growth but also of social development. And it is also for those who should help develop healthy environment. To achieve this end, it is necessary to be more proactive. Tokyo is a concrete example. How is Tokyo avoiding unending jams with a population of over 13 million? It is the subway, which carries 7.2 million of passengers daily and does it safely, quickly and on time.
What we need in Dhaka is a fast moving mass transport system first. The next step would be to restrict the private cars not only to remove congestion and save the city's environment, but also to reduce wastage of fuel. This scribe thinks that the issue of wastage of fuel was never thought practically. A few days back, the writer was going to a place 185 km away from Dhaka city. So, gas worth Taka 350 was enough to reach the destination from the outskirts of Dhaka. Strangely, in Dhaka that amount of gas cannot take us even to a 60-km ride. This is a normal phenomenon year after year.
In spite of all the sufferings the public is going through, the planners are still misguiding the government and asking them to take short-term measures.
It is in everyone's knowledge that Holy Ramadan comes every year. Why then impossible tasks are being attempted to be done partially or periodically in this particular month? Why are we not going for a permanent solution?
For no reason some quarters misguide the people of Dhaka saying that people of New York are not using metro or they don't love to use it. But Urban Transportation Fact Book suggests that the 7.0 million residents of the New York boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens take nearly five million trips a day on the city's subway system. The 2.1 million Ville de Paris residents take four million daily trips on the Metro. In Hong Kong, daily travel by rail transit is more than three million. The residents of London take more than four million daily trips by the Underground.
The decision of changing the timing of schools, etc., is not justified considering the nature of the main problem.
Using bus for the schools in the residential areas would not ease the problem; rather it would aggravate the situation. Unending jams can be removed, only by way of introducing subway. Government should not again spend money on CCTV, signalling system, etc. Rather they should work on an experimental basis and go for the proven track, which, for all practical purposes, is the subway.
The writer can be reached at
E-mail: [email protected]