Traffic jam in Dhaka is vary common problem. Every day we are facing jam. Government take some positive step .Otherwise we are going big problem in our daily life. I live in Dhaka khilgaon , only 20 minutes away from my office Eskaton . but I get out from my house about 1 hour and 30 minutes before . Because of terrible traffic jam, I remember a week, right after Eid-ul-Fitr Dhaka city was like half empty, at that week I went to office in 20 minutes. Dhaka is a mega city. More than twelve million people live here. Day by day the number is increasing and most part of Dhaka is badly affected by the population growth. More than 7 hundred thousand rickshaws ply the city road, but only 75 thousand have legal number. This huge number of rickshaws is creating traffic jam. From time to time attempts are made to reduce the number, but the initiative usually produces no results. The number of rickshaw pullers is huge. Almost there are no roads or street or lane free from traffic jam.
Traffic jam is obstructing trade and commerce. Illegal parking is another reason for traffic jam. Cars, trucks and other vehicles are parked almost everywhere. Faulty traffic signaling systems, inadequate manpower and narrow road spaces and overtaking tendency of drivers create pro-longed traffic congestions and intensify sufferings of commuters keeping people motionless as well as creating suffocating condition in the streets. Also there are bus terminals not authorized by the traffic department and drivers do not go by traffic rules. VIP protocol maintaining is another reason for frequent traffic jams in the streets and divider problem in the city’s different important roads also causes congestion. Besides, illegal car parking, and unplanned road excavating on the same road by Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA), telephone and telegraph agencies without any integration among them, is responsible for intolerable traffic jams. In any roundabout in Dhaka the plying CNG, ricksha, bus, etc form multiple lines. They do this to grab a tiny space out of sheer desperation. Behavioral scientists have long since done experiments to show that even insects demonstrate aggressive behavior when they are placed in a crowded situation. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to see that Dhaka’s pedestrians, thelawallahs, rickshaw pullers, CNG drivers, van pullers, and bus/truck drivers all vie for tiny spaces with noticeable aggression and utter disregard for others’ right of way. This obviously creates serious problems such as unnecessary traffic holdup and minor fender bender incidences. Nonetheless, there is a price tag for such bizarre behavior. The traffic managers have failed to do anything about this problem and the situation is going from bad to worse day by day.Most of time, I see that during jam traffic police just let one side go for like 5 minutes or more which increase the jam more. They should manage it more professionally; they could let go each side 1 minute.
To reduce traffic jam we can take steps such as:
- Have a good public transport system so people would use it
- Ban rickshaw from the main roads of Dhaka
- Good traffic system
- Good lane system
- Traffic police should do their duty properly
- Use zebra cross and foot over bridge
- Respect the law
The root, stem and leaf of the problem
Contrary to popular belief, Dhaka city is a planned city. Patrick Geddes made the first plan during the British rule which was followed by the plan made by the Pakistan government in 1956 and finally the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan in 1990.
‘Unfortunately, because of population pressure, economic growth and mismanagement the city has outstripped the plan,’ says Dr Amanat Ullah Khan, professor of geography at Dhaka University.
According to the older plans, the Tejgaon Industrial area, the cantonment and most of the rail crossing were constructed outside the city parameters. Unfortunately, they all lie in the heart of the city, at present.
Nearly 40 per cent of city space is occupied by campuses of DU, BUET, Jagannath, Dhaka Cantonment, BDR cantonment, the courts, where public transports find very limited space, experts opine.
‘With mass transport not allowed through BUET and DU it creates excessive pressure on the adjoining roads,’ says one senior police official, ‘also, the judge court and Jagannath University has eat up the most important parts of Old Dhaka,’ he adds.
He says, that because of the location of the Press Club at Segunbagicha, a large number of processions, demonstrations start from there causing massive congestion in that busy area.
While relocating some of these establishments may not be feasible any longer, especially since the university campuses have become an integral part of city life, experts believe, that the authorities in these institutions could allow a better flow of traffic during extreme traffic scenarios and the government should develop alternate roads and flyover along these places to smoothen the flow of traffic.
While very little can be done to change the larger picture now, there are a number of smaller factors which aggravate the traffic situation in the city.
The uncoordinated road digging by Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA), Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), Titas Gas and other utility service providers together make reasons for further road congestion, say experts.
The city’s numerous rail crossings and the influx of rickshaws into the capital from different places of the country with the advent of the Ramadan make road traffic stagnant, especially during this time.
Each day around 80 trains enter and exit the city, which causes six hours halt of traffic in total through each level crossing. Such types of level crossing create intolerable congestion at Magbazar, Mohakhali, Staff road, Karwan Bazar and other places.
According to the office of traffic control there are 76,000 licensed rickshaws in Dhaka though the actual figure is above 600,000. ‘An additional 100,000 rickshaws enter the city during Eid just to make additional income,’ says one senior traffic official. Moreover, every year some 30,000 new vehicles are registered. And while officially there are 160,000 motorised vehicles registered, of which 4,800 consist of buses, the unauthorised numbers of vehicles are much higher. ‘Last year, more than 60,000 motorised vehicles were added to the existing number of unregistered vehicles. Among them, nearly 50,000 were found in Dhaka alone,’ says Sayedur.
Although bus counters have been opened by many in the recent past but their unplanned establishments have resulted in the buses occupying road spaces that otherwise are essential for traffic flow. The buses stop randomly to pick up and drop passengers.
Most foot-over bridges and underpasses remain unutilised by the pedestrians reasoning dark and dodgy atmosphere inside as billboards block view from outside. Unhygienic passageways, steep stairs and pathway encroached by hawkers make it difficult to move on the bridge, say pedestrians. Although these all are true, the bottom line of the fact is that people are habituated and thus love using the shortest way by crossing over the street. Now, that it poses risk for the vehicles and create unnecessary traffic block let apart risking the pedestrians’ lives, are not their concern.
Many compressed natural gas (CNG) refuelling stations and petrol pumps are located near to the intersections that disturb the streets when large queues of vehicles break into the road. Although there is rule to set up refuelling stations having vacant spaces to accommodate thirty vehicles to wait inside the compound, it has been overlooked.
The government is to blame for the chaos when it approves universities, commercial establishments, garment factories, schools, clinics and wholesale kitchen markets at the residential areas that make life mess for those living in the community.
A lot of the plush shopping malls in the city have resulted in illegal road occupation by vehicles. Between Panthapath and Sonargaon intersection the traffic jam at anytime of the day is horrible because of the city’s biggest shopping mall constructed in the area, urban researchers allege.
And though the market offers a parking space of 1,200 vehicles, here too the people are habituated and love to park them on the street so that they can come out of the market and drive away fast without having to go down the parking space, pay for the parking ticket and look for the driver.
Officials at the traffic department believe that the fines for traffic violations are too meagre to raise fear for the violators. The red signal violation fine is only Tk 250 and illegal parking is only Tk 200.
Outside the mall and right beside the road, occupation of tea-stalls and shops make difficult for pedestrians to use the pathway.
‘We should not establish new commercial establishments in the already congested places. High-rise commercial structures should be built outside city to keep the balance, says professor Nurul Islam Nazem of the Centre for Urban Studies.
The way out
The city’s lone dependency on surface transportation system should be diversified to monorail, metro rail, and elevated expressways, Nazem believes. ‘Dhaka is turning into an “uneconomical city”,’ he says for the more time it takes for travelling now and the traffic jams increasing the cost of travelling.
Not only is the economy losing out from the increased cost of fuel but traffic jams sometimes result in deterioration of perishable goods in an existing food crisis, says a traffic official.
‘Since our traffic management system is extremely poor, the laws should be updated and monitored carefully and regularly,’ added Nazem.
‘There should be a whole “park” to educate on traffic system for the residents and children especially since one of the main reasons for road accidents and drivers not following rules is because of the abundance of fake licences,’ says Sayedur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Traffic Division (south) of DMP.
At the core of traffic congestion, development of traffic management is the need of time, says Nazem.
Experts recommend that flyovers be constructed at important intersections to reduce traffic congestion. Expressways should be introduced for passengers to cover long distances over busy routes, like from Gabtoli to Motijheel, directly without any stoppage.
Nazem recommends development of river front to bring the surrounding rivers under the transportation system. ‘If the water way can be developed, time can be saved and the pressure over the city roads could be reduced.’
Lack of east-west connecting roads is another cause of this problem so people have to use the north-southward transports more to reach locations connecting to the east-west, says Sohel Rana, assistant police commissioner of the southern traffic department. Government has planned east-west connecting roads over the Rangs Bhaban, Hatirjheel and at airport near Zia colony to ensure easy plying of vehicles.
‘Mass transit such as buses has to be drawn attention to at this point,’ recommends Sayedur. More roads should be freed from rickshaws and encroached street spaces should be recovered to expand walkways and ensure traffic flow. The inter district bus terminals have to be relocated at the city’s outskirts. ‘Most importantly, public awareness should be raised on to maintain signals, use foot over bridges more and respect traffic laws,’ he says. ‘We need proper enforcement of traffic laws.’
‘Public transport should be encouraged and once people feel that the public transportation is more effective, they would limit their use of private vehicles,’ says Dr K M Maniruzzaman, professor of the department of urban and regional planning, BUET. ‘The better thing to do is to discourage the number of commuters using single vehicle, improvement of public transportation is the only answer to discourage use of excessive private vehicles,’ he adds.
The biggest problem is actually related to our policies. Integration of public transportation routes is essential. ‘The main reason why the circular waterway failed was because of lack of integration. Suppose a commuter using the circular waterway, after he gets down from the boat, he has to have an immediate mode of transport to get in to the city. These routes should have been integrated,’ Sayedur explains.
‘The population has developed beyond its capacity but the physical capacity of the roads did not increase and secondly, to run the system, we must have effective managers with proper traffic education,’ says Amanat.
The traffic police responsible to look after the twisted mess over Dhaka’s road transportation however perform their duties without an institutional training. With the existing manpower of about 2,200 to uphold traffic discipline on the 3,000 kilometres separated between 376 points, traffic officials complain of exhaustion and frustration between them.
‘When we are investing so much to hire coaches to train our cricket team, we might as well think of hiring effective city managers, who will be like coaches and educate us on properly utilising available road space and train the city managers to run the city properly,’ Amanat added.
Commercial and academic failure ‘One of the major drawbacks in the country’s business infrastructure happens to be traffic congestion,’ says Hossain Khaled, President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI).
‘We are often in dilemma when it comes to estimate the amount of time it would require to deliver a specific consignment because of traffic congestions.’
He regrets saying, that traffic congestion problem is discouraging lot of international investors. ‘I had once recommended a foreign business delegation to setup their factory at Ishwardi, because the place has effective gas supply and good communication with Dhaka. However, that group totally felt discouraged because, although it should take three and half hours to reach there without any stoppage but because of traffic jams, its completely unknown how much time it would actually require.’
Traffic congestion is not only affecting our business but the education sector as well. M Asiuzzaman, assistant professor, department of media and journalism, University of Liberal Arts, said ‘students cannot do other tasks such as photocopying or collecting notes before attending class in the morning because a lot of time gets wasted on traffic congestions. It wastes lot of working hours of students as well as teachers. In many occasions, students and teachers fail to attend classes in due time. And it is more painful when students fail to reach exam halls and fails just due to a social problem’.
The future
Recently, the government has taken up the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) to curb the existing crisis.
ABM Shahjahan, executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) says that in Dhaka the total length of the road route is 2000 km but among them, buses are plying over only 200 km. On this 200 km route, a special and dedicated bus lane is going to be introduced to encourage mass transit.
‘On the first phase of the STP (Strategic Transport Plan), we will phase out the unfit vehicles from the DMP list. ‘Multi modal transportation’ system should be introduced immediately, not depending solely on the surface routes. Circular waterway would be introduced, which will reduce fuel consumption by 30 to 40 percent. Underground railway and elevated expressway will be introduced under STP’ he added.
Shahjahan said more that the fines for violating traffic laws during peak hours would increase from the existing Tk 200 to Tk 500.
Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 and Motor Vehicles Law 1984 are going to be updated and under this reform, drivers of the vehicles cannot escape his responsibility upon wrongdoing.
The major projects undertaken in the strategic transport plan (STP) are highway schemes included in phase one, within in 2005 to 2009, are from Zia Colony to Mirpur, Panthapath to Rampura (via duct road), Malibagh to Janapath and an intensive traffic management programme.
Two surveys on BRTA and bus route priority measure will be conducted also on that phase.
Highways such as Agargaon to Mirpur section 2, Bangla College to Kafrul, Gulistan to Jatrabari, Maghbazar to Mouchak, flyover and an ‘elevated expressway’, metro system design and construction will be conducted on the second phase of STP within 2010 to 2014.
And in the third phase (2015 to 2019) upgrading of 330 km regional highways, the highway between eastern bypass to Dhaka bypass, eastern by-pass, western by-pass and Dhaka link road will be conducted.
And as the government’s programmes remain on the pipeline to develop Dhaka’s traffic, experts point out that unless the focus of development is drawn outside Dhaka country’s economy is unlikely to develop, say academicians. Administration should be decentralised and Dhaka should not be the only focus of administration and development activities. The seventeen other towns of the country which formerly served as district headquarters have growth potentials but are not given much attention. If developed they can be turned into the country’s second-rank metropolises. Development in the urban areas is inevitable in order to reduce the traffic from Dhaka.
Contrary to popular belief, Dhaka city is a planned city. Patrick Geddes made the first plan during the British rule which was followed by the plan made by the Pakistan government in 1956 and finally the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan in 1990.
‘Unfortunately, because of population pressure, economic growth and mismanagement the city has outstripped the plan,’ says Dr Amanat Ullah Khan, professor of geography at Dhaka University.
According to the older plans, the Tejgaon Industrial area, the cantonment and most of the rail crossing were constructed outside the city parameters. Unfortunately, they all lie in the heart of the city, at present.
Nearly 40 per cent of city space is occupied by campuses of DU, BUET, Jagannath, Dhaka Cantonment, BDR cantonment, the courts, where public transports find very limited space, experts opine.
‘With mass transport not allowed through BUET and DU it creates excessive pressure on the adjoining roads,’ says one senior police official, ‘also, the judge court and Jagannath University has eat up the most important parts of Old Dhaka,’ he adds.
He says, that because of the location of the Press Club at Segunbagicha, a large number of processions, demonstrations start from there causing massive congestion in that busy area.
While relocating some of these establishments may not be feasible any longer, especially since the university campuses have become an integral part of city life, experts believe, that the authorities in these institutions could allow a better flow of traffic during extreme traffic scenarios and the government should develop alternate roads and flyover along these places to smoothen the flow of traffic.
While very little can be done to change the larger picture now, there are a number of smaller factors which aggravate the traffic situation in the city.
The uncoordinated road digging by Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), Dhaka Electric Supply Authority (DESA), Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), Titas Gas and other utility service providers together make reasons for further road congestion, say experts.
The city’s numerous rail crossings and the influx of rickshaws into the capital from different places of the country with the advent of the Ramadan make road traffic stagnant, especially during this time.
Each day around 80 trains enter and exit the city, which causes six hours halt of traffic in total through each level crossing. Such types of level crossing create intolerable congestion at Magbazar, Mohakhali, Staff road, Karwan Bazar and other places.
According to the office of traffic control there are 76,000 licensed rickshaws in Dhaka though the actual figure is above 600,000. ‘An additional 100,000 rickshaws enter the city during Eid just to make additional income,’ says one senior traffic official. Moreover, every year some 30,000 new vehicles are registered. And while officially there are 160,000 motorised vehicles registered, of which 4,800 consist of buses, the unauthorised numbers of vehicles are much higher. ‘Last year, more than 60,000 motorised vehicles were added to the existing number of unregistered vehicles. Among them, nearly 50,000 were found in Dhaka alone,’ says Sayedur.
Although bus counters have been opened by many in the recent past but their unplanned establishments have resulted in the buses occupying road spaces that otherwise are essential for traffic flow. The buses stop randomly to pick up and drop passengers.
Most foot-over bridges and underpasses remain unutilised by the pedestrians reasoning dark and dodgy atmosphere inside as billboards block view from outside. Unhygienic passageways, steep stairs and pathway encroached by hawkers make it difficult to move on the bridge, say pedestrians. Although these all are true, the bottom line of the fact is that people are habituated and thus love using the shortest way by crossing over the street. Now, that it poses risk for the vehicles and create unnecessary traffic block let apart risking the pedestrians’ lives, are not their concern.
Many compressed natural gas (CNG) refuelling stations and petrol pumps are located near to the intersections that disturb the streets when large queues of vehicles break into the road. Although there is rule to set up refuelling stations having vacant spaces to accommodate thirty vehicles to wait inside the compound, it has been overlooked.
The government is to blame for the chaos when it approves universities, commercial establishments, garment factories, schools, clinics and wholesale kitchen markets at the residential areas that make life mess for those living in the community.
A lot of the plush shopping malls in the city have resulted in illegal road occupation by vehicles. Between Panthapath and Sonargaon intersection the traffic jam at anytime of the day is horrible because of the city’s biggest shopping mall constructed in the area, urban researchers allege.
And though the market offers a parking space of 1,200 vehicles, here too the people are habituated and love to park them on the street so that they can come out of the market and drive away fast without having to go down the parking space, pay for the parking ticket and look for the driver.
Officials at the traffic department believe that the fines for traffic violations are too meagre to raise fear for the violators. The red signal violation fine is only Tk 250 and illegal parking is only Tk 200.
Outside the mall and right beside the road, occupation of tea-stalls and shops make difficult for pedestrians to use the pathway.
‘We should not establish new commercial establishments in the already congested places. High-rise commercial structures should be built outside city to keep the balance, says professor Nurul Islam Nazem of the Centre for Urban Studies.
The way out
The city’s lone dependency on surface transportation system should be diversified to monorail, metro rail, and elevated expressways, Nazem believes. ‘Dhaka is turning into an “uneconomical city”,’ he says for the more time it takes for travelling now and the traffic jams increasing the cost of travelling.
Not only is the economy losing out from the increased cost of fuel but traffic jams sometimes result in deterioration of perishable goods in an existing food crisis, says a traffic official.
‘Since our traffic management system is extremely poor, the laws should be updated and monitored carefully and regularly,’ added Nazem.
‘There should be a whole “park” to educate on traffic system for the residents and children especially since one of the main reasons for road accidents and drivers not following rules is because of the abundance of fake licences,’ says Sayedur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Traffic Division (south) of DMP.
At the core of traffic congestion, development of traffic management is the need of time, says Nazem.
Experts recommend that flyovers be constructed at important intersections to reduce traffic congestion. Expressways should be introduced for passengers to cover long distances over busy routes, like from Gabtoli to Motijheel, directly without any stoppage.
Nazem recommends development of river front to bring the surrounding rivers under the transportation system. ‘If the water way can be developed, time can be saved and the pressure over the city roads could be reduced.’
Lack of east-west connecting roads is another cause of this problem so people have to use the north-southward transports more to reach locations connecting to the east-west, says Sohel Rana, assistant police commissioner of the southern traffic department. Government has planned east-west connecting roads over the Rangs Bhaban, Hatirjheel and at airport near Zia colony to ensure easy plying of vehicles.
‘Mass transit such as buses has to be drawn attention to at this point,’ recommends Sayedur. More roads should be freed from rickshaws and encroached street spaces should be recovered to expand walkways and ensure traffic flow. The inter district bus terminals have to be relocated at the city’s outskirts. ‘Most importantly, public awareness should be raised on to maintain signals, use foot over bridges more and respect traffic laws,’ he says. ‘We need proper enforcement of traffic laws.’
‘Public transport should be encouraged and once people feel that the public transportation is more effective, they would limit their use of private vehicles,’ says Dr K M Maniruzzaman, professor of the department of urban and regional planning, BUET. ‘The better thing to do is to discourage the number of commuters using single vehicle, improvement of public transportation is the only answer to discourage use of excessive private vehicles,’ he adds.
The biggest problem is actually related to our policies. Integration of public transportation routes is essential. ‘The main reason why the circular waterway failed was because of lack of integration. Suppose a commuter using the circular waterway, after he gets down from the boat, he has to have an immediate mode of transport to get in to the city. These routes should have been integrated,’ Sayedur explains.
‘The population has developed beyond its capacity but the physical capacity of the roads did not increase and secondly, to run the system, we must have effective managers with proper traffic education,’ says Amanat.
The traffic police responsible to look after the twisted mess over Dhaka’s road transportation however perform their duties without an institutional training. With the existing manpower of about 2,200 to uphold traffic discipline on the 3,000 kilometres separated between 376 points, traffic officials complain of exhaustion and frustration between them.
‘When we are investing so much to hire coaches to train our cricket team, we might as well think of hiring effective city managers, who will be like coaches and educate us on properly utilising available road space and train the city managers to run the city properly,’ Amanat added.
Commercial and academic failure ‘One of the major drawbacks in the country’s business infrastructure happens to be traffic congestion,’ says Hossain Khaled, President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI).
‘We are often in dilemma when it comes to estimate the amount of time it would require to deliver a specific consignment because of traffic congestions.’
He regrets saying, that traffic congestion problem is discouraging lot of international investors. ‘I had once recommended a foreign business delegation to setup their factory at Ishwardi, because the place has effective gas supply and good communication with Dhaka. However, that group totally felt discouraged because, although it should take three and half hours to reach there without any stoppage but because of traffic jams, its completely unknown how much time it would actually require.’
Traffic congestion is not only affecting our business but the education sector as well. M Asiuzzaman, assistant professor, department of media and journalism, University of Liberal Arts, said ‘students cannot do other tasks such as photocopying or collecting notes before attending class in the morning because a lot of time gets wasted on traffic congestions. It wastes lot of working hours of students as well as teachers. In many occasions, students and teachers fail to attend classes in due time. And it is more painful when students fail to reach exam halls and fails just due to a social problem’.
The future
Recently, the government has taken up the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) to curb the existing crisis.
ABM Shahjahan, executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) says that in Dhaka the total length of the road route is 2000 km but among them, buses are plying over only 200 km. On this 200 km route, a special and dedicated bus lane is going to be introduced to encourage mass transit.
‘On the first phase of the STP (Strategic Transport Plan), we will phase out the unfit vehicles from the DMP list. ‘Multi modal transportation’ system should be introduced immediately, not depending solely on the surface routes. Circular waterway would be introduced, which will reduce fuel consumption by 30 to 40 percent. Underground railway and elevated expressway will be introduced under STP’ he added.
Shahjahan said more that the fines for violating traffic laws during peak hours would increase from the existing Tk 200 to Tk 500.
Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 and Motor Vehicles Law 1984 are going to be updated and under this reform, drivers of the vehicles cannot escape his responsibility upon wrongdoing.
The major projects undertaken in the strategic transport plan (STP) are highway schemes included in phase one, within in 2005 to 2009, are from Zia Colony to Mirpur, Panthapath to Rampura (via duct road), Malibagh to Janapath and an intensive traffic management programme.
Two surveys on BRTA and bus route priority measure will be conducted also on that phase.
Highways such as Agargaon to Mirpur section 2, Bangla College to Kafrul, Gulistan to Jatrabari, Maghbazar to Mouchak, flyover and an ‘elevated expressway’, metro system design and construction will be conducted on the second phase of STP within 2010 to 2014.
And in the third phase (2015 to 2019) upgrading of 330 km regional highways, the highway between eastern bypass to Dhaka bypass, eastern by-pass, western by-pass and Dhaka link road will be conducted.
And as the government’s programmes remain on the pipeline to develop Dhaka’s traffic, experts point out that unless the focus of development is drawn outside Dhaka country’s economy is unlikely to develop, say academicians. Administration should be decentralised and Dhaka should not be the only focus of administration and development activities. The seventeen other towns of the country which formerly served as district headquarters have growth potentials but are not given much attention. If developed they can be turned into the country’s second-rank metropolises. Development in the urban areas is inevitable in order to reduce the traffic from Dhaka.