Banker Sarwar Hossain is anxious every morning as he becomes very tense five days a week before starting for his office in Motijheel from his home in Uttara.

“Sometimes it seems to me that I am just wasting my life. How can I do my job efficiently if I spend hours on the road every day? Sometimes I spend up to four hours on the road to go to my office and come back,” he said. 

“Being painfully stuck in traffic is taking a toll on my mental health. It is really painful.”

Sarwar’s traffic woes are not unique. Commuters in Dhaka are frustrated by and angry about the city’s daily traffic chaos, which also costs the economy millions of dollars every year.

With 1.81 million registered vehicles in Dhaka alone and with a population of over 22 million, such a chaos is expected in a megacity where traffic management is still rudimentary and road infrastructure is dilapidated.

According to a 2018 study by Buet’s Accident Research Institute, Dhaka traffic wasted 5 million work hours and cost the economy Tk37,000 crore that year. According to other work done by the government’s BIDS and Dhaka-based think tank Policy Research Institute (PRI), approximately 6-10% of the country’s GDP is indirectly lost to traffic chaos every year.

Because of ongoing construction of the metro rail and bus rapid transport (BRT) as well as broken footpaths and dilapidated roads, traffic chaos has reached its peak in recent months.

Officials involved with such projects or traffic management are unable to say when this chaos will end.

The worst traffic chaos has been disrupting people’s movement on the Tongi-Banani road via Uttara and the airport area for months.

Many people have missed their flights due to traffic chaos on the route. Sometimes it takes about two hours to cross the airport area alone, and if someone’s luck is bad, two to three hours will not be enough to reach Paltan or Motijheel via this way.

Mohammed Raihan, another resident of Uttara, goes to the Bangladesh Secretariat from his home to attend his office every day.

“On rare occasions, I can make the journey within 1.5 hours from Uttara to my office. But it depends on the road being free of traffic. Most of the time I get stuck in the airport area, in Banani and Tejgaon for hours,” said Raihan.

Some other routes where traffic jams have reached an unprecedented level are Tejgaon-Farmgate-Shahbagh-Dhanmondi, Gulshan-Banani-Badda-Kuril and Gulistan-Paltan-Motijheel.

Md Ferdous, who goes to Paltan from Bashundhara Residential Area for work, said that it takes at least two hours for him to make the journey if he leaves early in the morning.

“Even two hours is not enough sometimes to travel this distance after 10am. Badda, Mouchak and Paltan intersections-these are the points where getting stuck for indefinite periods has become a common experience,” Ferdous said.

Md Munna, a regular commuter on Mirpur-Motijheel route, echoed Ferdous’ statement.

Traffic officials have no good news to share on whether it would end soon despite their optimism about taking some measures to ease the problem.

Md Munibur Rahman, additional commissioner (traffic) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), said following traffic rules and driving vehicles in a disciplined way can lessen traffic congestions in the city.

“Chaotic driving, parking vehicles at undesignated places and taking passengers from the middle of the roads are some of the reasons why traffic congestion happens. Besides, development works in some parts of the city are also adding to the problem,” said Munibur.

Munibur added that only traffic police will not be able to tackle the traffic situation and that people should change their mindsets to find a solution to the crisis.

To ease the traffic situation, the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) has decided not to allow parents to use cars for dropping their children off to school.

“We have decided to start school bus service to discourage the use of private vehicles. At first we will start the service experimentally at four schools and we will go for the rest of our experiment,” Atiqul said.

The mayor added that cars parked beside roads are the main reason for traffic congestion in some areas.

“Using private vehicles will decrease if we can earn the trust of the parents. Besides, the kids will develop strong social bonding while going to schools together, which is very important,” Atiqul added.

Farid Ahmad, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Dhaka South City Corporation, said the DSCC is taking coordinated steps to put an end to the traffic problem.

“Both the DSCC and the DNCC have reached an agreement to bring the buses that ply Dhaka streets under a single transport company. This will lessen the risky competition between the bus drivers to a great extent. Also, efforts are on to develop the traffic system of the city,” said Farid.

But banker Sarwar is not happy with the answers.

"These statements will not end our pain anytime soon. All these measures are half-hearted and will not address the problem at all,” he said with frustration.

Source: UNB