Subway can ease Dhaka's traffic congestion
Shafiqul Alam | Sunday, 10 August 2008
SOLVING the problem of congestion in a mega-city like Dhaka is not an easy task. A solution should approach a system that consumes less of fuel.
Trams and trolley bus would provide a performance even better than that of underground mass transit at a hundred times less cost. Very interesting! Electricity-run tram is totally an obsolete mode of low speed transport. It can carry only a few passengers. In Calcutta each tram gets only 10 or 15 passengers. Obviously, the electricity is always wasted. Moreover, trams create more congestion on the road used by other transports as well. On the other hand, trolley bus creates pollution. Subway or underground trains are far more efficient.
Going underground is a nice experience though one would not be able to know what is happening over the ground. In London, 500 km of subway is preferred by more passengers. In Calcutta, a million passengers travel everyday using 16.45 kms of the underground metro.
The Calcutta metro would be able to cater about 2.5 or three million passengers a day on completion of the on-going extension network.
A comparative study shows sky train can cater less to the need of than half the passengers metro can. The average speed of sky train is also less than half that of subway. Speed of elevated metro rail in Delhi is 50 Kph beneath the ground and 25 Kph over the ground, because the elevated structure is always vulnerable to collapse when the mass transport picks up speed. The elevated structure can absorb only vertical load without facilitating lateral speed.
America is home to seven out of 10 largest cities of the world. It is important to keep in mind that Dhaka has much less of roads than it needs. Bangkok's sky-train is not efficient as they don't cover the business zone. Bangkok has planned 91 kms of heavy metro.
China has constructed a good subway network and decided to connect most of the cities. Two new lines have been added to the existing lines in Beijing to save the environment from pollution.
The idea of metro rail was floated by a local firm in May 2002. The government invited tenders but no progress took place due to the absence of, private infrastructure guidelines. In October 2004, the guidelines were announced by the government.
All the modes including monorail and sky-train were evaluated by a high powered technical committee headed by the vice chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET).
The committee gave its opinion in favour of underground metro rail using the cut & cover method, with a cost of Taka 62 billion (6200 crore). The project is awaiting implementation. The advisers' council agreed in principle that some projects would be approved including metro rail.
For Dhaka, the most densely populated mega-city of the world, subway is the only viable solution to face acute crisis of fuel congestion and pollution.
With metro rail, people would be able to live in the sub-urban areas to reduce the load on the metropolis. After that, heavy tax could be imposed on cars during the peak hours.
The writer can be reached at E-mail: [email protected]
Trams and trolley bus would provide a performance even better than that of underground mass transit at a hundred times less cost. Very interesting! Electricity-run tram is totally an obsolete mode of low speed transport. It can carry only a few passengers. In Calcutta each tram gets only 10 or 15 passengers. Obviously, the electricity is always wasted. Moreover, trams create more congestion on the road used by other transports as well. On the other hand, trolley bus creates pollution. Subway or underground trains are far more efficient.
Going underground is a nice experience though one would not be able to know what is happening over the ground. In London, 500 km of subway is preferred by more passengers. In Calcutta, a million passengers travel everyday using 16.45 kms of the underground metro.
The Calcutta metro would be able to cater about 2.5 or three million passengers a day on completion of the on-going extension network.
A comparative study shows sky train can cater less to the need of than half the passengers metro can. The average speed of sky train is also less than half that of subway. Speed of elevated metro rail in Delhi is 50 Kph beneath the ground and 25 Kph over the ground, because the elevated structure is always vulnerable to collapse when the mass transport picks up speed. The elevated structure can absorb only vertical load without facilitating lateral speed.
America is home to seven out of 10 largest cities of the world. It is important to keep in mind that Dhaka has much less of roads than it needs. Bangkok's sky-train is not efficient as they don't cover the business zone. Bangkok has planned 91 kms of heavy metro.
China has constructed a good subway network and decided to connect most of the cities. Two new lines have been added to the existing lines in Beijing to save the environment from pollution.
The idea of metro rail was floated by a local firm in May 2002. The government invited tenders but no progress took place due to the absence of, private infrastructure guidelines. In October 2004, the guidelines were announced by the government.
All the modes including monorail and sky-train were evaluated by a high powered technical committee headed by the vice chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET).
The committee gave its opinion in favour of underground metro rail using the cut & cover method, with a cost of Taka 62 billion (6200 crore). The project is awaiting implementation. The advisers' council agreed in principle that some projects would be approved including metro rail.
For Dhaka, the most densely populated mega-city of the world, subway is the only viable solution to face acute crisis of fuel congestion and pollution.
With metro rail, people would be able to live in the sub-urban areas to reduce the load on the metropolis. After that, heavy tax could be imposed on cars during the peak hours.
The writer can be reached at E-mail: [email protected]