Mounting cost of traffic jams

IF GDP growth erosion is 2 per cent on account of corruption, it would do the decision-makers well now to calculate the loss of productivity and fuel caused by spiraling traffic congestion in the capital. This will help them realise what a formidable challenge faces the national development goals. From the waste of valuable time in waiting on cars and buses between trips through the hardship of the majority who are stranded in the streets to the sapping of physical energy and mental disorientation, the cumulative negative effect on the national psyche is simply stupendous.
We have repeatedly drawn the attention of the government to various structural and man-made factors which together have created a traffic management nightmare but to little avail. Experiments like ordering 20-year old vehicles out of the street, trying out lane system without commensurate improvement in signaling have more or less failed when buses stop over arbitrarily picking up passengers and off-loading them at undesignated places. The parking mess is all too known to bear repetition.
Against the backdrop of the approaching Ramadan, the whole lot of traffic management inadequacies take on a degree of severity that certainly requires special handling. Dhaka Metropolitan Police(DMP) have urged traders' associations to deploy community police in front of their business centers until before Eid day. What will the police be doing, granted, they would need ancillary support? Who will bear the costs of community police? For, if the businessmen share a part of the costs that may not be unfair but if they are to foot the whole bill they are likely to charge the consumers. Isn't it not the DCC who maintain community police? The matter should be judiciously approached.
The police authorities have also asked the bus terminal operators to increase the number of community police in and around the terminals during the month of Ramadan.
It is a welcome piece of news that among the contingency measures agreed upon between the DMP and the transport operators are strict enforcement of lane system, stern action against unregistered vehicles and debarring entry of inter-district buses -- all of these to facilitate city dwellers' reaching home before iftar. The DMP authorities have also vowed to go tough on fake drivers and helpers. Let see if the deployment of additional manpower translates into greater security, smoother traffic movement and reduced corruption.