After a hundred and one ideas and moves to resolve the capital city's maddening traffic knots have failed to make any headway, the finance minister has come up with yet another proposition. This is about restricting or even banning the movement of private cars with less than five or four passengers on the city's roads, in order to provide the space for the larger vehicles for mass transit.
Indeed, setting up a mass-transit system holds the key to reducing severity of the problem.
Undoubtedly, small vehicles like private cars usually occupy disproportionately bigger spaces than the number of passengers they carry. But talking of the shortage of road space in capital city, there are also other factors that contribute to the unbearable congestions. One third of the designated parking spaces is, for instance, being hogged by different private operators, thanks to the illegal practice of leasing those out to shops and various businesses having permanent structures. Add to this the fact that few roads, especially arterial ones, are being built to accommodate the growing number of vehicles within the limited space of the city. On the other hand, many of the high-rise commercial buildings including shopping malls are springing up with hardly any regard for providing adequate space for car parking. As a result, one often comes across terrible snarl-ups on the roads going past such high-rise malls and buildings.
But so far, the recovery drives to free such spaces from illegal occupants have never been undertaken with due seriousness. And if and when such drives were undertaken, it either stopped half-way or the reclaimed parking spaces were again reoccupied by those illegal occupants. So, while examining the various pros and cons of imposing restrictions on the movement of private cars, which is in practice in larger cities of Asia, Europe and North America in different extents, the authorities will have to take an all-out measure to complete the unfinished tasks like removing the illegal occupiers of the officially designated parking spaces.
Side by side, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC)authorities need to erect multi-storied parking spaces and rent those out to various users. Private ventures should also be encouraged by the government with bank loans to build similar high-rise parking lots to be run on commercial basis.
And about slapping restrictions on the movement of private cars, a more feasible approach as to the number of passengers per vehicle would have to be applied. The authorities may also think of charging congestion fees for private cars on select busier roads of the metropolis.
So, the best way to resolve the congestion-related crisis of the capital city would be introducing a mix of various measures being thought of to reduce city's frightening traffic tangles. But while putting any or all of these measures into operation, it has to be kept in mind these are short-term ones. For the ultimate solution lies in building alternative facilities as well as new roads to accommodate the ever-swelling fleet of vehicles of this still expanding capital city.