It's open to public fully
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally opened remaining half of the 8.7km Mouchak-Moghbazar flyover for traffic movement in the capital yesterday with the hope that the facility would help ease traffic congestion in the area.
The inaugurated portion is the four-km Malibagh-Razarbagh-Shantinagar section.
With increased purchasing capacity, people now own two or three cars, she said in her inaugural speech through video conference from her official residence Gono Bhaban.
The flyover would help ease traffic movement particularly at three railway level crossings and eight road intersections, she said, calling upon all to comply with the traffic rules.
Hasina first inaugurated its construction work in February 2013. In March last year, she inaugurated a two-km section of the flyover stretching from Holy Family Hospital to Saat Rasta intersection.
Later, the LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain inaugurated a 2.25-km section of it connecting Banglamotor to Mouchak in September last year, and an extended 450-metre section stretching from Hatirjheel intersection to Sonargaon Hotel in May this year.
The flyover has been widely criticised by public and experts alike throughout its construction tenure due to various planning faults and construction mismanagement and delay.
According to Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), the implementing agency of the project, the flyover would help vehicles move smoothly over eight road intersections and three railway level crossings -- Karwan Bazaar, Moghbazar and Malibagh, and ease chronic traffic congestion for north-south traffic movement.
Transport experts, however, criticised the project as a concrete block in the heart of the city and that the flyover has no provision for making a right turn.
The project was scheduled to start in 2011 and complete by December 2015 but it started in 2013.
Later in January 2015, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved a revision of the project with an extension of 18 months till June 2017 and an increase in cost of Tk 446.2 crore, adds UNB.
Midway through the construction work, the flyover was extended by 450 metres over Karwan Bazar railway level crossing.
Experts said that the Tk 85cr extended section would not bring any significant benefit due to various drawbacks -- one being that it abruptly lands without passing over the critical traffic junction of Sonargaon Hotel intersection.
The Tk 1,219-cr flyover has been built on 311 single-piers along the central line of the existing roads with 50 ramps.
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