No remedy in sight

As Sylhet city grows in terms of its population, so does its traffic.

Due to lack of a proper traffic management system in the city, residents are experiencing more gridlock than ever.

While citizens blame the authorities for the gridlock, the authorities blame each other for lack of initiatives, and they, in unison, blame residents for lacking civic sense.

In Sylhet city, areas that have gridlock around the clock are -- Bandarbazar, Zindabazar, Amberkhana, Madina Market, Medical Road, Lamabazar, Mirjajangal, Nayasarak, Naiorpul, Mirabazar, Shibganj, Sobhanighat, Bus Terminal area and among others.

Shoumitra Dhar, a resident of the city, said, "Years ago, gridlock was a rare sight in Sylhet city, but now the situation's as bad as Dhaka. Even at night, hour-long gridlock claim valuable time."

Shofique Miah, an autorickshaw driver said, "I drive my autorickshaw on the Bandarbazar to Tilagarh road route. Gridlock at Bandarbazar, Naiorpul, Mirabazar and Shibganj areas claim half the time of every trip."

Sufi Ahmed, a passenger of the same route, said, "I run a printing press at Bandarbazar and I commute there twice daily. Traffic jam at different places on the road claims extra hours of the workday every day."

According to Sylhet Metropolitan Police (SMP) traffic department, the key reasons behind such heavy traffic are -- no digital traffic system, narrow roads, no parking facilities, the delayed inauguration of a newly-constructed bus terminal, inaccessible truck terminal, incomplete Companiganj-Badaghat bypass road and wholesale markets, among others.

According to Sylhet City Corporation (SCC), there are more than 55,000 buildings and around half of the commercial and residential buildings have no parking lots.

Moreover, there are at least 20 mini buses, 12 human hauliers, and 30 auto-rickshaw stands that operate by occupying a part of the roads, and these stands are not authorised by the SCC.

On top of that, the roadsides are occupied by thousands of hawker-run makeshift stalls, which further narrows down the roads.

Apart from these reasons, all educational institutes are built near major roads and they have no parking lots. This results in people parking their vehicles on the road, which intensifies gridlock during school hours.

Faruque Mahmud Chowdhury, president of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik  (Shujan) Sylhet chapter, said controlling traffic should be a joint  effort of SCC, SMP, and BRTA.

"But they're all failing and people are  suffering," he added.

Faisal Mahmud, deputy commissioner (traffic) of SMP, said, "We've proposed some suggestions to the city corporation that will help control gridlock."

Some of the suggestions were -- creating parking spaces at the abandoned old central jail and removing existing hawkers' markets, moving wholesale markets from Kalighat and Kazirbazar to the newly-extended city areas.

"Moreover, section 37 of the road transport act dictates the local government to allot parking space for vehicles. As the city corporation failed to dedicate parking spaces, we aren't being able to take strict action against illegal parking in the city," he said.

Residents' awareness is also vital in this regard, he added.

Bidhayak Roy Choudhury, chief executive officer (additional secretary) of SCC, said, "We've been working to promptly finish all the road development projects. They (traffic police) proposed impractical suggestions, which cannot be implemented in short term."

"The city's old area (26.5 sq km) has no vacant spaces to build parking places while parking lots in the extended areas won't change the scenario. The century-old wholesale markets also cannot be removed from the city overnight as it will cause chaos among traders," he said.

Blaming the residents' lack of civic sense, he said, "We've built a hawkers' market but they tend to come to the road and people like it that way. People also don't respect traffic laws, which cause gridlock."