Surface mass transit system would be better for Dhaka than underground railways
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Yasmin Chowdhury
THE decision to build underground railways for the city of Dhaka has met with a range of responses. On one side is the "halleluyah" response--at last, the government is taking public transit seriously, with plans to invest at least $3.2 billion US dollars to make life easier for the masses.
On the other side comes the practical question: how feasible is the plan? How much will eventually get built? Will it actually function? And whether a different public transit, trams or trolley, or bus rapid would achieve similar or better benefits for about a hundred times less money per kilometer?
Of course traveling by underground train is a different experience. A city with an underground system can also boast of it. Where I grew up, there is no developed system for public transit, and it is virtually impossible to get around without a car. Since I let my driver's license expire about a decade ago, I feel like a child when I visit, reliant on adults to take me to places. Meanwhile, when I visit big modem cities like Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York City, or San Francisco, or any number of European cities, I can easily move around on my own.
But while the independent mobility is a blessing, with it comes a significant downside. When traveling underground, we fail to experience the city we are in. Living in Boston and frequently traveling by subway, I had many of the stops memorised, and could easily get underground. But I had no idea what was over my head.
When I finally got into the habit of walking through the city following the subway lines above ground, I realised that I was gaining a perspective of the city. Where are the buildings, the monuments, and important places of the city in relation to each other -- not in terms of a subway map, but in terms of their actual physical locations? In the process, I realised how little I had actually understood, all those years of living there, about the true layout of Boston. Or what is to be found in which neighbourhood that I had only passed under. The parts of the city I knew best were those I walked through, or where the subway emerged into a street-level trolley, and there was a sense of connection between the passengers and the street life out of our windows.
When traveling underground, we are unaware and often unconcerned about the situation at ground level. Passing under a slum, we don't pause to reflect on the lives of the people there, and whether something couldn't be done to make it better for them, or on why trash is thrown here and there, or how desolate some of the streets look. But we do notice those things when traveling on the surface. And there is the possibility that from noticing, we will go on to change it.
This has a practical side for the commuters as well for the businesses. Traveling at the ground level, one can see shops and other amenities. Oh, that's where one can buy that. Or oh, that looks like a pleasant restaurant! And knowing where it is and how to access it, there is the possibility of going there again and again. This is far more amusing way to pass travel time than looking at tunnel walls. It is good for the businesses too.
Then of course one needs to take a realistic view. I remember seeing, year after year, a map of the subway system in Washington, D.C. which showed various "planned" routes. They were never built. Short of funds? Similarly, I read in the newspaper in Bangkok that its sky train network was supposed to extend far beyond. That hasn't happened, and the sky train itself took many years to build in part, I hear, due to corruption.
The new metro in Bangkok doesn't go much beyond the sky train. What then are the chances that Dhaka will succeed in building all it plans? If the plan proves unaffordable, as the price of materials continues to rise. How much will a limited system do to reduce traffic congestion or make traveling easier?
Building a subway system requires building a lot of tunnels. The funny thing about tunnels is, they have to be accessed from the street. This involves a lot of big holes, and while those holes are in place, streets are closed down. So congestion will be significantly worse for the years during which the Metro system is built.
There is also the issue of crowding on the subway. I was in New York City recently, and given the intense street-level congestion, when going too far to walk, I tried the subway. It was certainly better than being stuck in traffic, but of course I had no idea where I was, and I couldn't decipher the thick New Yorker accent of the conductor. On one trip, the train was so packed that I couldn't see out the windows to read the names of the stops. This made arriving at my destination a bit of a challenge, and left me as clueless as ever about the geography of Manhattan.
The sky train is often packed in Bangkok, with no room to stand. Thais are polite, and I have never had a man grab me. Unfortunately, I can't say that for my experience of riding in crowded subways in Boston. I have heard horror stories about the system in Mexico, which apparently had to provide separate carriages for women to prevent sexual harassment on packed trains.
Then there are those lovely escalators down to the stations. Where there are hills, or where the system must go under high-rise buildings, stations must be built far below the ground.
Some of those escalators seem to go on forever. Stepping onto those moving stairs, with the ground so far below, seems moving to almost to another planet. It makes one's head spin.
I was relieved, on a recent trip to D.C., to discover that a Bangladeshi colleague had a similar or even worse experience. He insisted on taking the lift. Of course the lifts are intended mostly for the disabled, those with children, or luggage. So one sometimes must wait a long time for it. Between long lines for lifts and the crowded trains, it sometimes feels as if a portion of the traffic congestion has been shifted underground.
Speaking of traffic congestion, it helps to remember that people need to be able to get to, and from, the public transit stops. Getting from one stop to another in little time is a great convenience, but the benefits of that convenience are diminished when it is difficult to get from public transit to one's actual destination.
I made a mistake in Bangkok once and got off at the wrong subway stop. As I came up to the street, I realised that I had got off on the wrong side. There was no provision to cross the road.
I could either go back underground, pay again, then wait for another train to get off on the other side, or could risk running on the wrong side of the highway. Needless to say, I ran.
In cities with broken sidewalks -- sidewalks blocked by parked cars, and barbed wire and cement medians to prevent people from crossing the street -- getting to, and from, public transit becomes a daunting challenge. Anyone in their right mind would choose to drive instead, if they have the option.
Public transit doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is part of a city, and it is meant to connect places not just along the tracks, but throughout the city. If people can't easily get to the stops on foot, or on rickshaw, then there is little point in building the system in the first place.
Then there is that lovely dream of the uncongested streets of Dhaka, once an underground railway is built. How many large, crowded cities with crowded Metros have streets free of traffic jams? Travelling at a good pace underground just isn't that pleasant. Subway stations are often hot and smelly. Homeless people tend to use them as urinals. And there are always those aggressive people who insist on smoking despite all the signs. If subways make the streets congestion-free, then everyone who can afford a car or taxi would prefer that.
I remember once being late for the airport in Boston. Rather than going below ground, change trains twice, and move at snail's pace as the Boston subway, the oldest in the US, often goes, I took a taxi. Oops! Of course it took even longer, thanks to the traffic. I missed the flight. Yet Boston's subway system is far more extensive than Dhaka's one is ever likely to be.
And it is easy to walk in Boston, and there is a good bus system to complement the subway. The population is a fraction of Dhaka's. So why are there still traffic jams, when the subway is supposed to eliminate them?
I'm sure the decision for underground railway for Dhaka was made in good faith. Perhaps the planners involved have not spent much time in other major cities of the world to experience their subways and the traffic situation on the roads. Perhaps they expect that people would enjoy going underground, or safely insulated in a steel box.
No doubt they consider the expenditure of a few billion dollars quite reasonable.
Perhaps they are too busy to read the Strategic Transport Plan, which was meant to map out the best transport plan for the future, and found that subway would offer no significant improvements over surface public transit. Thus there is no justification to build it.
A little thought or planning is needed before going for such an expensive project. I would suggest that before taking the final decision about an efficient, fast, affordable and high quality system of public transit the Dhaka city's planners should be careful not to miss the point. It's a lot more expensive and more technically difficult to build and operate an underground railway than a surface system.
Dhaka would get far more extensive transportation, with much lower fares and less government subsidy, if a surface rather than an underground system is built. The surface system could be built faster, and with less of disruption to traffic during construction, than an underground railway.
The issue of fares is important the world over. As public transit tends to be expensive, it is highly subsidised by governments.
The more expensive the system to build and maintain, the higher the fares and the subsidies, and slimmer the chances to build or complete it. Expansions should prove all the more difficult.
People can see their city out of the windows travelling in a surface transport. It gives a sense of perspective and knowledge of what is happening around them.
A less expensive system could be started and completed quickly. Future expansion would be easier and less expensive also. People can walk short distances to reduce congestion.
Fixing the footpaths, political will to ban parking on roads and pavements should not prove more difficult to spending billions for the underground system.
Leaping onto the wrong train won't help the city of Dhaka get the correct solution.
The writer can be reached at
e-mail: yasmin_cho@yahoo.com
THE decision to build underground railways for the city of Dhaka has met with a range of responses. On one side is the "halleluyah" response--at last, the government is taking public transit seriously, with plans to invest at least $3.2 billion US dollars to make life easier for the masses.
On the other side comes the practical question: how feasible is the plan? How much will eventually get built? Will it actually function? And whether a different public transit, trams or trolley, or bus rapid would achieve similar or better benefits for about a hundred times less money per kilometer?
Of course traveling by underground train is a different experience. A city with an underground system can also boast of it. Where I grew up, there is no developed system for public transit, and it is virtually impossible to get around without a car. Since I let my driver's license expire about a decade ago, I feel like a child when I visit, reliant on adults to take me to places. Meanwhile, when I visit big modem cities like Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York City, or San Francisco, or any number of European cities, I can easily move around on my own.
But while the independent mobility is a blessing, with it comes a significant downside. When traveling underground, we fail to experience the city we are in. Living in Boston and frequently traveling by subway, I had many of the stops memorised, and could easily get underground. But I had no idea what was over my head.
When I finally got into the habit of walking through the city following the subway lines above ground, I realised that I was gaining a perspective of the city. Where are the buildings, the monuments, and important places of the city in relation to each other -- not in terms of a subway map, but in terms of their actual physical locations? In the process, I realised how little I had actually understood, all those years of living there, about the true layout of Boston. Or what is to be found in which neighbourhood that I had only passed under. The parts of the city I knew best were those I walked through, or where the subway emerged into a street-level trolley, and there was a sense of connection between the passengers and the street life out of our windows.
When traveling underground, we are unaware and often unconcerned about the situation at ground level. Passing under a slum, we don't pause to reflect on the lives of the people there, and whether something couldn't be done to make it better for them, or on why trash is thrown here and there, or how desolate some of the streets look. But we do notice those things when traveling on the surface. And there is the possibility that from noticing, we will go on to change it.
This has a practical side for the commuters as well for the businesses. Traveling at the ground level, one can see shops and other amenities. Oh, that's where one can buy that. Or oh, that looks like a pleasant restaurant! And knowing where it is and how to access it, there is the possibility of going there again and again. This is far more amusing way to pass travel time than looking at tunnel walls. It is good for the businesses too.
Then of course one needs to take a realistic view. I remember seeing, year after year, a map of the subway system in Washington, D.C. which showed various "planned" routes. They were never built. Short of funds? Similarly, I read in the newspaper in Bangkok that its sky train network was supposed to extend far beyond. That hasn't happened, and the sky train itself took many years to build in part, I hear, due to corruption.
The new metro in Bangkok doesn't go much beyond the sky train. What then are the chances that Dhaka will succeed in building all it plans? If the plan proves unaffordable, as the price of materials continues to rise. How much will a limited system do to reduce traffic congestion or make traveling easier?
Building a subway system requires building a lot of tunnels. The funny thing about tunnels is, they have to be accessed from the street. This involves a lot of big holes, and while those holes are in place, streets are closed down. So congestion will be significantly worse for the years during which the Metro system is built.
There is also the issue of crowding on the subway. I was in New York City recently, and given the intense street-level congestion, when going too far to walk, I tried the subway. It was certainly better than being stuck in traffic, but of course I had no idea where I was, and I couldn't decipher the thick New Yorker accent of the conductor. On one trip, the train was so packed that I couldn't see out the windows to read the names of the stops. This made arriving at my destination a bit of a challenge, and left me as clueless as ever about the geography of Manhattan.
The sky train is often packed in Bangkok, with no room to stand. Thais are polite, and I have never had a man grab me. Unfortunately, I can't say that for my experience of riding in crowded subways in Boston. I have heard horror stories about the system in Mexico, which apparently had to provide separate carriages for women to prevent sexual harassment on packed trains.
Then there are those lovely escalators down to the stations. Where there are hills, or where the system must go under high-rise buildings, stations must be built far below the ground.
Some of those escalators seem to go on forever. Stepping onto those moving stairs, with the ground so far below, seems moving to almost to another planet. It makes one's head spin.
I was relieved, on a recent trip to D.C., to discover that a Bangladeshi colleague had a similar or even worse experience. He insisted on taking the lift. Of course the lifts are intended mostly for the disabled, those with children, or luggage. So one sometimes must wait a long time for it. Between long lines for lifts and the crowded trains, it sometimes feels as if a portion of the traffic congestion has been shifted underground.
Speaking of traffic congestion, it helps to remember that people need to be able to get to, and from, the public transit stops. Getting from one stop to another in little time is a great convenience, but the benefits of that convenience are diminished when it is difficult to get from public transit to one's actual destination.
I made a mistake in Bangkok once and got off at the wrong subway stop. As I came up to the street, I realised that I had got off on the wrong side. There was no provision to cross the road.
I could either go back underground, pay again, then wait for another train to get off on the other side, or could risk running on the wrong side of the highway. Needless to say, I ran.
In cities with broken sidewalks -- sidewalks blocked by parked cars, and barbed wire and cement medians to prevent people from crossing the street -- getting to, and from, public transit becomes a daunting challenge. Anyone in their right mind would choose to drive instead, if they have the option.
Public transit doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is part of a city, and it is meant to connect places not just along the tracks, but throughout the city. If people can't easily get to the stops on foot, or on rickshaw, then there is little point in building the system in the first place.
Then there is that lovely dream of the uncongested streets of Dhaka, once an underground railway is built. How many large, crowded cities with crowded Metros have streets free of traffic jams? Travelling at a good pace underground just isn't that pleasant. Subway stations are often hot and smelly. Homeless people tend to use them as urinals. And there are always those aggressive people who insist on smoking despite all the signs. If subways make the streets congestion-free, then everyone who can afford a car or taxi would prefer that.
I remember once being late for the airport in Boston. Rather than going below ground, change trains twice, and move at snail's pace as the Boston subway, the oldest in the US, often goes, I took a taxi. Oops! Of course it took even longer, thanks to the traffic. I missed the flight. Yet Boston's subway system is far more extensive than Dhaka's one is ever likely to be.
And it is easy to walk in Boston, and there is a good bus system to complement the subway. The population is a fraction of Dhaka's. So why are there still traffic jams, when the subway is supposed to eliminate them?
I'm sure the decision for underground railway for Dhaka was made in good faith. Perhaps the planners involved have not spent much time in other major cities of the world to experience their subways and the traffic situation on the roads. Perhaps they expect that people would enjoy going underground, or safely insulated in a steel box.
No doubt they consider the expenditure of a few billion dollars quite reasonable.
Perhaps they are too busy to read the Strategic Transport Plan, which was meant to map out the best transport plan for the future, and found that subway would offer no significant improvements over surface public transit. Thus there is no justification to build it.
A little thought or planning is needed before going for such an expensive project. I would suggest that before taking the final decision about an efficient, fast, affordable and high quality system of public transit the Dhaka city's planners should be careful not to miss the point. It's a lot more expensive and more technically difficult to build and operate an underground railway than a surface system.
Dhaka would get far more extensive transportation, with much lower fares and less government subsidy, if a surface rather than an underground system is built. The surface system could be built faster, and with less of disruption to traffic during construction, than an underground railway.
The issue of fares is important the world over. As public transit tends to be expensive, it is highly subsidised by governments.
The more expensive the system to build and maintain, the higher the fares and the subsidies, and slimmer the chances to build or complete it. Expansions should prove all the more difficult.
People can see their city out of the windows travelling in a surface transport. It gives a sense of perspective and knowledge of what is happening around them.
A less expensive system could be started and completed quickly. Future expansion would be easier and less expensive also. People can walk short distances to reduce congestion.
Fixing the footpaths, political will to ban parking on roads and pavements should not prove more difficult to spending billions for the underground system.
Leaping onto the wrong train won't help the city of Dhaka get the correct solution.
The writer can be reached at
e-mail: yasmin_cho@yahoo.com