Dhaka traffic

While many high-falutin, high cost proposals are being bandied about in some quarters to help resolve traffic congestion crisis in Dhaka (and perhaps to line some pockets as well) -- proposals like maglevs, monorails, subways, host of flyovers, etc. -- a few practical steps can be taken immediately as cost-effective measures to relieve the unbearable traffic conditions on Dhaka roads:

1. Stagger hours: Fix educational institution start and end hours at 7am and 2pm respectively. The majority of transports working around these hours would be for carrying the students to and from their institutions. Let office hours be staggered starting from 8am through 11 am and likewise staggered ending 5pm through 8pm. This staggering could be done industry or sector-wise, after due analysis, to provide maximum business hours overlap among related industries or sectors. For example, garment industries could start their shifts non-coincident with start of workday of government office hours or other non-related industries. Likewise, private firms, banks, etc., could arrange their work hours in similar manner, maintaining several core overlap hours. This, of course, needs a little research to arrive at the best combination. Delivery vehicles and cargo carrying trucks be restricted to operate only between the hours of 9 pm and 2 am, or some similar hours (you get the idea).

2. Provide greater co-ordination among all city bus-lines to schedule buses to stop at designated bus stops (no random pickups) at posted scheduled times to achieve optimum interlinking among different routes.

3. Make several roads one-way, after due analysis of traffic patterns. Bangkok has an interesting way of making one lane one-way in either direction depending on the time of the day and traffic flow. Study that.

4. There are something called traffic lights. It seems that the powers-that-be have given up on the idea, though I remember traffic lights being introduced in Dhaka even before liberation. I guess we all got liberated from traffic lights as well. Yes, traffic lights by themselves mean nothing if they are not observed. Driver education, maintenance of the lights and vigorous traffic law enforcement are necessary corollaries of much wider deployment of the lights than there is now. By the way, this will also cut down on tooting of horns and the noise and air pollution that are rampant today.

5. Traffic conditions reporting on AM band or even FM band (if there is one such) would help drivers determine alternate routing or even alternate hours of travel.

6. Pedestrian crossings: Been there, done that. But very ineffectually. It seems that every time this topic is raised the powers-that-be come up with civil works that siphon off public money to line their pockets without delivering any results. Witness the much-publicised overhead bridges, the skeletons of which remain even to this day. Clearly demarcated crossings on the road combined with traffic lights work pretty well. We don't have to be in the dark ages about such simple solutions. And I don't buy that our people can't be trained about road etiquette. Just check on the many DV immigrants from many of our remote villages using the streets of L.A. or New York.

7. Co-ordination among the different works department so that street digging and impediment to traffic flow is minimised is a topic much under consideration. I understand there are some movements in vesting powers centrally to make this happen, but whether that will happen is a different matter. The willy-nilly building up and demolition of traffic islands and roundabouts under successive administrations bear ample testimony to the lack of planning and governance, and make-work programmes to drain the public exchequer.

8. On an intermediate time frame, active consideration should be given to rehabilitating rickshaw pullers and withdrawing rickshaws altogether, first from bottleneck areas and later throughout the city.

9. Likewise, active consideration should be given to relocating several industries, in phases, away from the city, garment industry being among them.

10. Along the same lines move back several government ministries where they properly belong. Ports Authority, Railway, the Navy, to name a few, should move their HQ to Chittagong. Let other cities flourish and their outlying areas develop. Spread the money and income generating activities around the country. Since the public sector activities form a major proportion of the GDP let's start there. The private sector will follow. Decentralize!

11. Root cause for the traffic problems in Dhaka lies in the tremendous influx of population from outlying areas, an influx that the infrastructure is unable to handle. Let's turn it around. Satellite towns served by speedy commuter trains would be a start. (Today, it takes over half an hour to get the train to move from Kamalapur to Tongi!). The rolling stock and infrastructure are mostly there, an incremental expenditure would be needed to upgrade existing facilities as opposed to deployment of a TGV type of service. We cannot afford bullet trains, contrary to what some 'interested' ministers, secretaries, consultants and lending institutions would have us believe.

12. Last but not least, like Singapore, Dhaka authorities should think actively of ways to dissuade private vehicle ownership when public transport would work just as well, if not better. Making vehicle ownership cost-prohibitive would be one of them; making public transport convenient, safe, pleasant and cheap would be another. In this regard, there is much to be said about the poor state of the public transit system.

I am sure many of the enlightened readers of The Daily Star will have many other suggestions. And much, if not all, of what has been said in the foregoing are not new. There is nothing fantastic in these suggestions. A conservative estimate would place a loss of between one million to two million productive person hours lost per day by the commuting public of Dhaka due to traffic congestion problems. I am hopeful that this will elicit several responses from the readership and even from relevant authorities.

Finally, I would like to suggest to the Editor that a specific column be dedicated as a forum for discussions on improving Bangladesh, call it "Better Bangladesh" or something of that ilk and let the ideas flow specific to this subject. We are making strides. We can be a lot better than what we are today! And where there is a will there is a way. It has been done; the polybags and two-strokers are cases in point.

Shawkat Ali is a former mass transit consultant to several North American city authorities.