Dhaka City's Transportation Problem :Is there any solution ?
- Part 2 -

Prof. Bijon B. Sarma *

SOME PARADOXES:

In Bangladesh some peculiar things can be noticed in the attitude of the urban authorities. It may seem strange that various programs taken up by the urban authorities shamelessly go for ensuring the financial interest of the land owners. Even though Bangladesh is a democratic country with equal rights for all, their activities reveal as if they are working for :
(i) Making the city a habitable area for only the affluent people,

(ii) Equipping and enriching the city with facilities, provisions and services such that people from all over the country and abroad could be compelled or allured to come here and spend money. In the history of Bangladesh all the governments, with the lone exception of President H.M. Ershad, have shown utter ignorance of the interest of the people living outside Dhaka. President Ershad's "Upazilla Parishad" program was a excellent gesture of helping the citizens distributed all over the country.

Some of the means in which the urban authorities ignored the needs of the common people and endeavored to favor the rich are :
(i) Even though the first condition of efficient movement of people in any city is "footpath", the Dhaka city authorities have kept blind eyes on its improvement and maintenance. On many occasions they have allowed the rich people to use it as car parking, exclusive waiting space, storage space, garden, business outlet, office for the political parties etc.

(ii) The urban authorities discovered that rickshaws were the "hindrance" for the movement of the rich men's cars. So they started eliminating those from the so called VIP roads. Now, however, they realize that the cars themselves are their worst enemies and act as obstruction for their movement even in wide roads.

It is interesting to note that at present the poor people feel amused to see that when they can somehow manage their movement in the ill-maintained footpaths and lanes by foot or rickshaws, the rich people, jammed in their own jungle of cars burn and waste fuel and suffer from severe pains. This situation however, has created golden opportunity for the car-traders to sell air-conditioned cars.

MASS TRANSIT :

Quite often it is said that an efficient system of mass transit can solve Dhaka's transportation problem. This solution in the "level of the kitchen-maids" may be workable only if the higher authorities (i.e. masters of the house) can ensure the following :
(i) Control over the number of vehicles allowable inside the city,
(ii) Control over the entry of vehicles from outside,
(iii) Number of inhabitants etc.

In case the urban authorities continue its present program of increasing the city by absorbing the fringe areas, increase of allowable heights, construction on vacant lands etc., then mass-transit in large-bodied vehicles would not at all help because in that case "the roads would eventually be jammed by large bodied vehicles".

MORE ABOUT THE PROBLEM :

Even the affluent and developed countries could not still solve their transportation problem by keeping dependence on private cars. However, such countries themselves are manufacturers and exporters of cars, they never express anything that may go against their business. The phenomenon may be clear from the following examples :
(i) In Nigeria vehicles from the entire country used to rush to the southern port city, Lagos, creating tremendous jam. In order to reduce the number of cars, on one occasion the city authorities introduced a rule of allowing cars with odd (or even) numbers on alternate days. The problem was even more aggravated because many people bought a second car.

(ii) The developed countries love to advise the oil rich Nigeria for obvious reasons. As per their advise, the government of Nigeria started constructed multi-level vehicular roads (raised expressways) in Lagos for solving the problem of crossing, avoid jam and reduce travel time. After those were constructed in as many as 4 levels (as of 1990) it was seen that a vehicle could travel the entire 45 kilometer length of the city in 45 minutes.

But then when a vehicle came down on land to reach its destination at say 2 kilometer apart, it needed several hours. Those who advocate multi-level vehicular streets should keep in mind that all vehicles using those roads at one time shall get down to the ground level to create extreme jam and in fact lengthening the travel time. Well, the situation could be made advantageous if only buses were allowed to ply in the expressways. However, being ex-colonial countries, neither Nigeria nor Bangladesh can not ever think of a solution that would help only the common people and not the car owners.

In the city normally the vehicles running in the main road continue journey while those on the branch roads are kept waiting. However, when the number of vehicles on the main road increases reducing the inter-vehicular distance 3 or 4 meters, the above rule needs to be reversed. At this stage the vehicles from the branch roads "by rule" are given the first preference, while those on the main road keep waiting. With the advantage and consequences of the multi-level expressways Lagos city has to adopt the same. Intelligent men might understand that unless the conventional rule is reversed, then no vehicle from the branch road would ever be able to enter the main road.

(iii) Flyovers smash the charm of a city. It is extremely difficult to construct flyover in the major two directions in built-up cities, not to say anything about left and right connections. Flyover without provisions of right and left turns create tremendous problem for the people to reach their destination. Standard flyovers with left-right turns (popularly known as clover-leaf) in spacious cities even do not save travel time because the vehicles need to move through large distances. However, since the drivers do not have to keep waiting, they feel psychological consolation at the cost of wastage of fuel.

The ironic fact is, the use of private vehicles in large number has not been able to solve transportation problems in any part of the world. Multiple level vehicular roads create tremendous environmental and sound pollution. Wider roads allowing speedy vehicles increase possibility of accidents. Accidents taking place in wide or multiple level roads result is severe damage and loss of life. One may imagine how difficult it is to send help to such nearly inaccessible places. The car-manufacturers and sellers are super-active to hide these facts.

On the other hand they introduce passive solutions like, introducing cars with movie, internet, coffee-making facilities, provisions for exercise, book reading etc., saying these save the time of the owner. In the developed countries they usually bribe the politicians to adopt projects utilizing cars. Their influences have entered the arena of education also.

The curriculum of Physical planning courses in those countries has been prepared ensuring maximum use of private cars. The universities of Bangladesh also have prepared their curriculum for those courses after their curriculums. In such a situation it is no wonder that the physical planners having degrees from home or abroad do not learn to think differently.

In course of his long experience in the developed countries, Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan realized the above mentioned problem. On one occasion he opined, "The workers housing should be established nearest to the industries such that they can come on foot spending minimum time. The owners of industries love to construct those at far away places where land is cheap. They use buses to transport them.

Such a system takes away considerable leisure time of the workers, involve unnecessary use of vehicles and create permanent loss of gas (gasoline or fuel) from the limited world reserve of fuel". It was natural that his intelligent advice was not given importance by the capitalistic countries.

But the irony is, what a Bangladeshi engineer could think while living in a western country, our planners fail to realize the same even after living in this poor country.



to be continued.....