Unacceptable traffic jams in the city
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
The suffering of the residents of the city are now too great from incessant traffic jams that grip most parts of the city, every day. For example, huge traffic snarls were noted on all main roads leading towards Dhanmondi and adjacent areas on Saturday evening. It was absolutely unfathomable in the first place why such jams should be there on Saturday which is a weekly holiday. One commuter was held up for more than an hour, motionless at an intersection, near Nilkhet. But traffic was noted to be moving on all other sides and the ones in the held up intersection could see clearly that beyond the place where they were forced to queue up, traffic movement was normal.
As it is, most of the time the jams are seen deliberately created by traffic policemen acting without any reason or rationality by holding up traffic at busy points on the roads for a very long time. Any unusual situation such as violence leading to cordoning of roads or for other security measures, may justify such holding up of traffic. But when such reasons do not exist but traffic are, nonetheless, forced to a standstill, then the same only reflects bad and irresponsible traffic policing. Not only such holding actions, the traffic police are also seen most uncaring about regulating carefree rickshaw movement, allow buses to stop on undesignated sections of roads to pick up passengers and also do nothing when road spaces are gobbled up from unauthorized parking.
The news of the introduction of close circuit television (CCTV) cameras was prominently carried by newspapers on Sunday. But do the people have any further stomach for what they could be considering as sheer stunts or sarcasm with them by the authorities. They would be asking with a lot of bitterness what good CCTVs will bring to their every day travel related agonies. They were similarly sought to be assured during installation of automatic signaling lights that they can hope to be delivered from traffic jams. But no sooner these lights were installed with fanfare and a great deal of expenses that these started becoming dysfunctional one by one. Even where the lights appear to be functional, the policemen do not use them but resort to their mindless signaling by hand to detain the commuters for long periods without any reason whatsoever.
Indeed, all such suggestions as building elevated expressways, underground trains and other grand designs for solving the traffic related torments for the people of Dhaka, sound like a mockery when the elaborate corps of the traffic policemen do not do even the minimum to help the traffic but rather work for the opposite objective. High sounding infrastructures like expressways take a long time to build and their coming into existence are still not ensured. But people in the meanwhile must have reasonable mobility. Sometimes, the traffic conditions are found to be so bad that a foreigner may not be blamed for questioning whether there is any administration in this country.
Many times the media focused the losses from traffic jams that run into many billions of taka or its equivalents from delayed transportation of goods and uneconomical functioning of vehicles. As for very personal losses, patients were known to have died from the inability of ambulances to reach hospitals on time due to traffic jams. Thus, it is very high time for the authorities to respond to this very great regular anguishes from traffic jams. People are one in demanding that traffic policing must be improved at the fastest on a sustainable basis.
As it is, most of the time the jams are seen deliberately created by traffic policemen acting without any reason or rationality by holding up traffic at busy points on the roads for a very long time. Any unusual situation such as violence leading to cordoning of roads or for other security measures, may justify such holding up of traffic. But when such reasons do not exist but traffic are, nonetheless, forced to a standstill, then the same only reflects bad and irresponsible traffic policing. Not only such holding actions, the traffic police are also seen most uncaring about regulating carefree rickshaw movement, allow buses to stop on undesignated sections of roads to pick up passengers and also do nothing when road spaces are gobbled up from unauthorized parking.
The news of the introduction of close circuit television (CCTV) cameras was prominently carried by newspapers on Sunday. But do the people have any further stomach for what they could be considering as sheer stunts or sarcasm with them by the authorities. They would be asking with a lot of bitterness what good CCTVs will bring to their every day travel related agonies. They were similarly sought to be assured during installation of automatic signaling lights that they can hope to be delivered from traffic jams. But no sooner these lights were installed with fanfare and a great deal of expenses that these started becoming dysfunctional one by one. Even where the lights appear to be functional, the policemen do not use them but resort to their mindless signaling by hand to detain the commuters for long periods without any reason whatsoever.
Indeed, all such suggestions as building elevated expressways, underground trains and other grand designs for solving the traffic related torments for the people of Dhaka, sound like a mockery when the elaborate corps of the traffic policemen do not do even the minimum to help the traffic but rather work for the opposite objective. High sounding infrastructures like expressways take a long time to build and their coming into existence are still not ensured. But people in the meanwhile must have reasonable mobility. Sometimes, the traffic conditions are found to be so bad that a foreigner may not be blamed for questioning whether there is any administration in this country.
Many times the media focused the losses from traffic jams that run into many billions of taka or its equivalents from delayed transportation of goods and uneconomical functioning of vehicles. As for very personal losses, patients were known to have died from the inability of ambulances to reach hospitals on time due to traffic jams. Thus, it is very high time for the authorities to respond to this very great regular anguishes from traffic jams. People are one in demanding that traffic policing must be improved at the fastest on a sustainable basis.