Traffic congestion – the bane of Dhaka city

Ambassador Muhammad Zamir

We have been living in Dhaka since February, 1950. At that time the city’s population was slightly less than 200,000. Since then it has grown into a megacity with a population of nearly 15 million. It has evolved its own character – a blend of rural and urban. A percentage of its population, of about 3.5 million, is non-resident in character. They regularly leave Dhaka to visit their families living in villages or small towns during religious festivals like Eid. At that time Dhaka has a deserted look and one can go from one part of the city to another within a reasonable time. At other times, it is over-crowded and filled with more problems than answers.

 Winter in Dhaka – the period between November and March – is the normal preferred time for friends and relatives, living abroad, to visit Dhaka and other destinations in Bangladesh, not only to meet relatives and friends but also to re-acquaint themselves with the country that has moved forward in their absence.

Hence, I try to draw their attention to the many positive changes that have marked our socio-economic evolution over the last eight years. I point out to the fact that, unlike the past, we tend to have electricity for most of the day and night. I draw their attention to supermarkets that have sprung up in most major cities and particularly in Dhaka. I refer to the advances made in education and gender empowerment and also to the dynamics of digitalisation that now pervades our lives. I also mention about the other improvements achieved in our infrastructural support paradigm.

This is exactly what I was doing on the morning of  December 01. However, I had to cut short my references on the positive advances made by us because I had to leave around 11.30 am to attend a Namaz-e-Janaza. The funeral prayer, I had been informed, would be held after Zohr prayers in a mosque in Banani. I live in Dhanmondi. Consequently, I thought that my travel time would not take more than one hour and fifteen minutes (given that the mosque was about eight KM away) and I would be in time to attend the prayer, due to be held around 1.20 pm. I left my house at 11.32 am and reached the vicinity of the mosque at about 1.50 pm – after all the ritual prayers had already been completed. The drive had taken more than two hours and twenty minutes. I was not only angry but also sad.

Witnessing my predicament, one of my friends handed over to me an article written by Jody Rosen in the New York Times. It was published on  September 23, 2016 and dealt with the dire conditions of Dhaka traffic. I read it carefully and had no hesitation in agreeing with most of the observations made by that journalist in that commentary.

The reason I am writing today on this issue is because of a photograph that appeared in a local newspaper about how digital traffic management in Dhaka had given way to ropes being strung across the street at a busy inter-section near the Prime Minister’s Office. It has become a glaring example of what should not happen in a capital of any country. The traffic police have apparently been forced to resort to this format for controlling traffic flow in various parts of Dhaka because drivers tend to flout all laws related to inter-sections at traffic crossing points – particularly so, by those driving auto-rickshaws, motor-cycles, buses, large vans and trucks. The quagmire deteriorates even further if the traffic flow includes rickshaws and rickshaw vans (as in the case of the inter-section near the Sonargaon Hotel and Karwan Bazar leading up to Panthapath).

This dysfunctional approach towards controlling traffic has made Dhaka – a megacity with a population larger than Belgium or Netherlands or Norway or Denmark or Sweden – a prime example to the rest of the world of how a city should not function. Consequently, it has not been any surprise that in the 2016 Global Liveability Survey, the quality of life report issued annually by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Dhaka has been ranked 137th out of 140 cities, edging out only Lagos, Tripoli and war-torn Damascus. The traffic quagmire scenario obviously was one of the important factors that tipped the scale against Dhaka. Apparently, its infrastructure rating was also found to be the worst of any city in the survey.

The traffic situation in Dhaka has become singularly a negative reflection of the way we are managing our city. In a manner of speaking, traffic snarls have become detrimental to the city’s economic future and development.

Jody Rosen comments on the existing situation: “We were in the heart of the city now, penned in by surging pedestrians and hundreds of vehicles competing for space on a wide road called Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue. There were passenger cars and puttering three-wheeled auto-rickshaws. There were buses so vacuum-packed with passengers that many riders were forced onto the exterior, clinging to open doorways and crouched on rooftop luggage racks. There were cargo tricycles, known locally as “vans,” heading to markets bearing heaping payloads of bamboo, watermelons, metal pipes, eggs, live animals. And, of course, there were the iconic Dhaka passenger vehicles, bicycle rickshaws. Officially, rickshaws are banned on major thoroughfares like Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, but there they were, in vast phalanxes, their bicycle bells pealing above the roar of the traffic jam… It sounds like an overstatement, but to behold the gridlocked streets of Dhaka is to see distress in action, or rather, in inaction…. Footpaths are also an issue. There are too few sidewalks in Dhaka, and those that exist are often impassable, occupied by vendors and masses of poor citizens who make their homes in curbside shanties. True or not, there’s no mistaking the pounding that the city gives to your auditory nerves. Traffic is Dhaka’s deafening music, a dissonant theme song of shouting drivers, rumbling engines and, leading the attack, honking horns: vocals, bass, ill-tuned brass. By the government’s own estimate, Dhaka’s traffic jams eat up 3.2 million working hours each day and drain billions of dollars from the city’s economy annually. Traffic in Dhaka is not just a nuisance. It is poverty, it is injustice, it is suffering.” These are not flattering comments and do not certainly depict Dhaka as a desired destination for tourists.

The concerned authorities, for the past two years have been trying hard to address the issue. We have seen the installation of several dozen traffic lights which were supposed to be kept in continuous working condition through the help of solar panels. There was a lot of expectation but the results appear to have been very unsatisfactory. To an extent, the effectiveness of the new system has been hampered through the use of policemen taking over the control of traffic despite the presence of functioning traffic lights. Traffic is kept waiting even when the green lights are on and allowed to go through when the red light is on. There is also the unfortunate situation whereby rickshaws and rickshaw vans enter into streets with fast moving traffic (in principle, prohibited by law). This becomes more dangerous because nearly all of them do not have any sort of light on their body frame or any reflector to indicate their presence on the road. This adverse scenario is further complicated when it comes to providing fast access to ambulances carrying patients in emergency conditions to hospitals. In most places, whims of the law-enforcement official act as the determining factor. Such a format for traffic management is contrary to established practice elsewhere in the world.

The state-of-affairs of traffic outside Dhaka, on the highways, also leave a lot to be accepted. We probably have one of the highest death toll figures in road accidents compared to rest of the world. According to a newspaper, at least 3,080 people were killed and 7,918 others were injured in 2,717 road accidents across the country in the last 11 months until  November 30. Partially, this is due to inexperienced drivers, driving long hours on inter-District routes without required rest and not following the respective lane arrangement. There is also the question of poor traffic management by the police. The other factor is the use of trucks and buses on roads without proper fitness that is required for long inter-city travel. This, in turn, discourages foreign tourists and many others from undertaking overland trips to destinations like Sylhet or Cox’s Bazar.

We have to address this issue in a constructive manner – the sooner, the better.