Tailbacks stop Dhaka dead in its tracks

He could have gone to Comilla and even started back home by the time he reached his Karwan Bazar office from Uttara. She could have visited her ancestral home in Tangail instead of heading for the midtown office from Banani.
And Rafique could just have stayed back at home and slept the day through rather than spending Tk 1,000 on his taxi cab and make only Tk 425 on two trips during the whole day.
Dhaka yesterday was like this--a city choked on its Eid festival traffic tailbacks, overawed by the impossibility of inching forward. From a distance it was as well a dead city as cars after cars stood still just like from the aftermath of a mysterious disease attack that stopped everything in its track. The sun beat down mercilessly on the simmering tops of vehicles, boiling the passengers inside. The Bhadra heat was literally ripening the palms on a windless day.
And as it happened, a young woman in her labour pain could not hold it any longer--it was already about two hours on the road--and the baby was born inside the ambulance.
Many came out of their homes yesterday, thinking they might face a light traffic on a Saturday, it being a weekend. But they knew they were wrong when met with the unappetising fact that when Eid comes, Dhaka traffic goes haywire. It looked as if nobody wanted to stay home on this particular day, and all of about 3,70,000 vehicles--cars, buses, taxis and three-wheelers--had come onto streets.
Anxious relatives suffered terribly while rushing their patients with emergency need to hospitals, ambulance sirens filling the air on many jam-packed roads to make ways to hospitals.
Everyone in the family of the 17-year-old woman were excited as she was going to give birth for the first time. They made no delay to call an ambulance from Ad-deen Hospital at Moghbazar to take her to hospital.
"The ambulance started from Uttara at 11:00am and was supposed to arrive at the hospital at 11:35am, but at 12:45pm it just reached the Satrasta intersection when the young woman gave birth to her child," said Shamsur Rahman, assistant supervisor of the hospital.
He said all their ambulances faced severe trouble during the whole day yesterday.
Traffic policemen said the gridlock was caused as thousands of people came out in the morning for Eid shopping at the New Market, Elephant Road, Bashundhara City Shopping Complex and the shopping malls in Dhanmondi area since it was weekly holiday.
Passengers of CNG-taxi cabs and auto-rickshaws had to count more than double the normal fare while cabbies and CNG-run auto-rickshaw drivers still said they could not even earn their deposit money during the whole day.
Traffic jam is a perennial problem of the city, eating up huge man-hour and causing extra fuel cost and waste of time.
According to transport economist Rafiqul Islam, director of BCL Associates Ltd who led a number of survey on city traffic, yesterday said traffic jam causes an estimated annual loss of Tk 24,000 crore to the country's economy.
While talking to reporters, Communications Adviser Maj Gen (retd) Ghulam Quader also recently mentioned the figure, although far less than that of Rafiqul Islam, to be Tk 15,000 crore.
Commuters and traffic policemen said by noon thousands of vehicles remained stranded on Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Mirpur Road, Panthapath, Bijoy Sarani, Bangla Motor and all their connecting roads yesterday.
"I remained stuck at the same place for over half an hour on the VIP Road between Jahangir Gate and the Chief Adviser's Office. It took me an hour and 50 minutes just to drive around 2km to reach Karwan Bazar," said Jafar Ullah Gazi.
Traffic Inspector Amal Gomez who was on duty at the Bijoy Sarani intersection said, "By noon I was unable to decide what to do as the flows of traffic towards Shahbagh, Rokeya Sarani and even Lake Road got stagnant."
He said when people started coming out after shopping in the afternoon the traffic started to move.
Yellow taxicab driver Golam Rabbani said he had just Tk 500 in his pocket after the whole day's driving from 8:00am and that he has to deposit Tk 1,000 a day to the cab owner.
With disappointment all over his face, Rabbani said the congestion was so severe yesterday that it took two and a half hours from 2:00pm to make it to Mohammadpur from Mohakhali.
He said usually the fare is between Tk 110 and Tk 120, but yesterday the fare rose to Tk 282 on the meter.
CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver Ramzan Ali said it took him three and a half hours to take a passenger from Uttara to the New Market and the fare rose to Tk 300. The normal fare for that distance is usually Tk 120-130.