A bridge built without proper traffic planning, assessment

Fresh earth being dumped into the Gulshan-Banani Lake to build approach road of the bridge encroaching the lake.Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

The bridge over Gulshan-Banani Lake to link Banani and Gulshan residential areas has been built without proper transport planning and public consultation on traffic impact analysis, said eminent transport experts.
The bridge was not identified as a possible link between Banani and Gulshan in the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) of Dhaka, said Dr. Rahmatullah, who is a policy adviser of Transport Sector Management Reform of the Planning Commission and worked as urban transport planning expert in the STP.
Normally, a prior adequate environmental assessment is required for construction of such a bridge, said Rahmatullah, who is also a resident of Gulshan.
Moreover, it was crucial to carry out a study of traffic flow to ascertain possible impacts of the bridge on the residents who are going to be directly affected, he added.
CM Shafi Sami, a former adviser to the caretaker government and presently president of Gulshan Society, said no public consultation was done on the bridge with the residents.
However, Md Haider Ali, project director and LGED executive engineer, said they obtained environmental clearances much later than the project started as high officials of the Environment Department were present at the inter-ministerial meeting.
“We carried out traffic and feasibility studies,” he said. “We held consultation with the interested people and it is impossible to hold consultation with everybody.”
The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (LGRD) initially undertook a 90-metre long bridge project to connect 60-foot wide commercial road no-11 in Banani with 40-foot wide residential road no-41 in Gulshan. Local Government Engineering Division of the LGRD is implementing the project.
Later, they revised the project proposal and made it a Y-shaped bridge connecting Gulshan road no-35/A too, which is a dead end.
The residential area along this road is going to be affected very badly, said Rahmatullah, as there is no quality road to carry additional traffic loads between Gulshan and Banani through the bridge.
According to official sources, the government has set October 30 to inaugurate the bridge. Implementation of the project started in October last year.
The project director said, “Estimated time for the project was two years, but we have completed it in just 13 months. We will start earth removal from the lake bed by Oct 26.”
The Planning Commission is a letter on July 2, 2007 mentioned that it will be a linking bridge between Banani road-11 and Gulshan road-41.
Until then the approved cost of the project was Tk 14.5 crore but recently the cost has reportedly been revised to Tk 22 crore.
“I do not think the project is going to serve the purpose of resolving traffic problem for which it has been undertaken,” said Prof Jamilur Reza Choudhury, who headed a 31-member advisory expert committee on STP and is vice-chancellor of Brac University.
The bridge is set to mar considerably the natural environment of the 'ecologically critical' Gulshan Lake with massive earth filling and occupy a portion of it with ramp, cantilever and approach road.
The project authorities are filling fresh earth into the lake to rebuild one portion of road no-35/A, said the residents.
The authorities have never disclosed the whole plan of the project, said Riaz Ur Rahman, convenor of Gulshan Society zone-3.
Prof Haroonuzzaman, a resident on road-35/A, said they are spending sleepless nights because of horrendous noise at the construction site. Aftab Alam, a resident of house no-37, said that a number of other residents of his building have already left.
Zaidi Sattar, another resident at house no-41 on the same road, said, “I am more apprehensive about how I will get out of house once the bridge opens to traffic.”
The under construction approach road between roads no-35/A and 34 of Gulshan will be built occupying a part of the lake, said the project officials.
The Tk 12.47 crore project (initially) was undertaken without obtaining prior environmental clearance and impact assessment.
Environmental Conservation Rules (ECR) of 1997 requires the project authorities to carry out a prior Viability Assessment Report, an Initial Environmental Examination and an Environmental Management Plan for any project.
Project authorities obtained a site clearance with 16 preconditions from the Department of Environment on March 5, 2008.
But curiously enough, the department in a letter on April 3, 2008 addressed to Dr Kamal Hossain and Associates said that they have not endorsed any Initial Environmental Examination, Environmental Management Plan and Environmental Impact Assessment for the bridge.
Project authorities have earth filled a huge swath of the lake although the government has declared in 2001 that the lake is ecologically in a critical state in accordance with the Environment Conservation Act of 1995.
According to various sources, the project has been expeditiously implemented in unusual hurry in the face of special interest of an adviser to the caretaker government.