We Dhaka-dwellers are used to disobeying the law in our daily lives -- discipline can be seen as a menace, and logic seen as insanity. Unwillingness to follow rules is the way of life in this labyrinth. Our megacity accommodates over 15 million people in just 324sq-km. We have made it to number one as the worst city in the world to live in, according to some rankings.
Traffic jams in Dhaka are escalating day by day. We are ignoring all the things we should do to keep this problem under control. Every year, the number of vehicles that hits the roads is about 40,000.
That, compounded with the growing number of rickshaws, of which many are allegedly unlicensed, adds to the traffic problem in the capital city. We seldom see the BRTA enforcing drives to evict old vehicles from the streets to ease this traffic paralysis. Such awful law enforcement!
Roads in Dhaka city are scientifically inadequate. For a planned and healthy city, some sources say at least 25% of it should be allocated to roads.
But in Dhaka city, hardly 6-7% of space is allocated for roads. Even this small portion is not fully conducive for vehicular movement. Last year, a study revealed that something like Tk20,000cr was lost every year while people were stuck in traffic.
There are various reasons for the interruption to the free flow of vehicles on the streets. Due to the absence of separate lanes for rickshaws in most of the roads in the city, they mostly occupy the whole road, defying traffic rules, which hampers the free movement of motor vehicles. A rickshaw moves at 15-20km per hour at best.
While there should be at least 1,500 motorised vehicles moving on the roads in an hour, we see hardly 500, as the slow-moving vehicles impede the overall speed of vehicles on the roads.
On average, lots of vehicles have to wait near the rail crossing when the train passes every 15 minutes, causing serious traffic jams as well.
Inadequate standard public transport is another cause for this menace. While a single bus is sufficient to accommodate about 50 passengers, there are 50 private cars occupying the roads to carry passengers.
The burgeoning growth of shopping malls, residential apartments, schools, and colleges violating building codes and city plans with illicit collaboration of Rajuk officials, has worsened the situation intensely.
Most of the buildings in the city have no adequate parking space which allows the vehicles to occupy the roadsides and footpaths.
Every day, I witness uniformed personnel in shopping malls helping cars park on footpaths, while pedestrians are forced to walk through the main streets risking their lives, which also narrows down the effective road width to a great extent.
Most of the footpaths are occupied by makeshift businesses near the shopping malls and in commercial areas. Some footpaths and foot over-bridges are also occupied by construction material.
It is obvious that both city corporations are not fulfilling their responsibility of ensuring that footpaths are made usable for pedestrians.
Years of negligence on part of authorities concerned, inspired by corruption, has led the capital city to this present predicament. They often excuse and deny their liabilities.
There are many reasons for why people violate traffic rules and regulations. The traffic department fails to enforce laws due to lack of manpower.
On the other hand, most of the pedestrians, passengers, and drivers have no education and consciousness about traffic laws.
Careless jaywalking is seen everywhere on the busy streets, even though there are several foot over-bridges built for pedestrians so they may cross without hampering traffic movement. Public transport does not stop at allocated bus stops. They stop their vehicles wherever the passengers want to get off or on.
Unplanned urbanisation, unplanned road design, unchecked population growth, and lack of integration and co-ordination among the regulatory bodies are the key reasons for traffic jams. The government should form a body to ease public suffering and save economic loss.
The authorities should really discourage domestic migration, and encourage decentralisation.
All of Bangladesh’s successes will be undermined if we fail to tackle our traffic problem.
