Tailback stops city in its tracks

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As if they don’t have an end: long queues of traffic stretching over all the city streets, totally clogging the thoroughfares. In several rows vehicles are glued with one another with hardly any space between them, as if being formed into wreaths.

“Only God knows when I would reach Gulistan,” Gazipur grocer Shafiqul Islam sitting in a passenger bus on his way to see his ailing mother in Narayanganj, said while stuck in gridlock jam at Karwan Bazar.

It was 11:15am, and Shafiqul said it took him 55 minutes to reach Karwan Bazar from Banani, distance that should take hardly 15 minutes.

Like him, scores others would say traffic congestion has reached a new height.

In a situation like this, the commuters not only have to spend hours in traffic jam but also have to pay more in fare.

“What can we do? Since we have to remain stuck in jam for hours, we can’t take as many passengers as we did earlier,” said Nazimuddin, a CNG-run three-wheeler driver.

Special measures taken to ease congestion during the holy month of Ramadan have failed, causing intolerable sufferings to commuters almost the whole day, with respite just before the iftar.

Has city traffic system totally collapsed? Traffic authorities won’t agree to take the blame.

The authorities said they have very little to do as the number of vehicles is “far far beyond” the road capacity, with road repair work in some places worsening the problem further.

The road divider replacement and road extension on the VIP road from Sonargaon Hotel to Dhaka Sheraton Hotel have shrunk the busy road. It is not only causing jam on Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue but also equally affecting other adjoining streets, lanes and by-lanes.

“Traffic pressure here is quite maddening from 8:00am to 11:00am when people go to office,” traffic constable Jahangir Hossain, on duty near Saarc Fountain at 1:15pm, told The Daily Star.

The congestion starts taking acute turn again by 2:30pm when people start rushing home, he added.

“Vehicles coming in full flow from different streets have to slow down due to shrinking of this VIP road, creating a long jam at their tails,” said Jasim Uddin, joint commissioner of traffic police.

Vehicles coming through the roads hitting Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue can hardly advance, creating a nagging gridlock from Mohakhali flyover to Paltan through Farmgate.

The jam later engulfs Mirpur Road, Progati Sarani, Panthapath and Satmasjid Road.

The divider work is on at a slow pace and the traffic police have asked the Dhaka City Corporation several times to finish the work quickly, said Deputy Commissioner (DC) of south traffic zone Sayedur Rahman.

Workers on the site said they will need at least four more days to complete the work started about one and a half month ago.

“Nowhere in the world traffic police have to work so hard to maintain traffic as we do here. But the fact is that sudden rush of traffic on all the streets at 8:00am and during office breaking hours is not easy to manage,” he said.

“During Ramadan, people have a short day to finish all their businesses outside as they start late and return home early. So all of them come out on the streets at the same time,” Abdul Hannan, driver of a route No. 4 (Gabtoli-Sayedabad) bus said when stuck at Karwan Bazar.

Many drivers tend to break traffic rules as passengers ask them to drive fast, he noted.

“Absence of a footover bridge at Bangla Motor and people’s negligence in using the footover bridge at Shahbagh contribute a lot to traffic congestion there,” DC Sayedur Rahman said.

A fencing, like the one at Farmgate, may help stop people from crossing the road at Shahbagh, he added.

Pointing out the huge number of schools in Dhanmondi, Rahman noted that traffic rush to schools in the morning and school break hours is a major reason for congestion the in that area.

Some traffic officials pointed out that makeshift iftar shops on the footpaths and walkways are also contributors to traffic congestion.

“We are not taking any hard stance to evict the iftar sellers, but asking them not to occupy space illegally,” a traffic official said.

An inter-ministerial body on September 13 received a proposal for opening the road through Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters in Pilkhana for general public for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. But it is yet to be implemented, said traffic officials.

“We’re working to reorganise the bus routes through the city,” Joint Commissioner Jasim Uddin said.

Passenger buses ply on 138 routes, stretching over 200-kilometre road in the city.

Talking on a proposal for cutting traffic stoppage time during traffic signals, some officials said it would not be of much help.

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