Eid Journey Home: Roadworks, bottlenecks, breakdowns can ruin it
Ongoing road development work may lead to severe congestion between Dhaka and Gazipur on Dhaka-Mymensingh highway and Elenga and Hatikumrul on Dhaka-Rangpur highway during the Eid rush.
On top of this, nonautomated toll collection at Padma, Meghna, and Bangabandhu bridges and the Dhaka-Mawa-Bhanga expressway could cause long queues.
Traffic could grind to a halt due to breakdowns of rickety, unfit vehicles and crashes caused by the large number of motorbikes that will be on the highways.
Unlike the last Eid-ul-Azha, the government will allow bikes on highways, but not on the Padma Bridge.
The relatively short holidays this year is likely to put extra pressure on the other transport modes and many bikers could choose to use their vehicles for the journey.
These issues came up at a meeting of the road transport and bridges ministry arranged at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority headquarters yesterday. The meeting was on how to make the Eid trips smooth and safe.
Representatives from different ministries, local administration, police, transport association, and road safety campaigners joined the meeting chaired by Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader.
Before last year's Eid-ul-Azha holidays, people heading for the north and north-western parts suffered immensely in congestion.
According to an estimate by Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, around 1.2 crore people will leave Dhaka ahead of this Eid. Another 5 crore will make journeys from one district to another, it said.
THE CONCERNS
Quader claimed that Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Sylhet highways will not see major tailbacks during the rush. "But I am fearful of the Dhaka-Gazipur corridor where construction of the BRT [Bus Rapid Transit] is going on," he said.
"This is our biggest concern. This section has to be kept passable by any means," he said.
On the Elenga-Sirajganj-Bogura highway, he said development work has to be stopped for days if needed to facilitate traffic movement during the rush.
The government is turning the 190km Gazipur-Elenga-Hatikumrul-Rangpur highway into a four-lane highway. The Bangabandhu Bridge approach road in the east has two lanes, which could become a bottleneck.
Project Director Waliur Rahman said vehicles heading north will use the main road while Dhaka-bound vehicles will use a bypass from Bangabandhu Bridge.
"We got good results with this initiative during the last Eid-ul-Fitr rush. But a large number of unfit vehicles breaking down blocked the road before Eid-ul-Azha," he told The Daily Star yesterday.
Proper traffic management is the key, he said, adding that 14km out of the 19km Bangabandhu Bridge approach road in the west is already four lanes.
Cumilla Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Shamim Alam said the server for Daudkandi Toll Plaza goes offline occasionally. "If such an event occurs during the rush, it will create a huge problem. I request preparations so that the toll can be collected manually if needed," he said.
Inspector General of Police Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun echoed him.
In most toll booths of Padma Bridge, Meghna Bridge, Bangabandhu Bridge and Dhaka-Mawa-Bhanga Expressway, booth operators take the money from vehicles and give receipts printed by computers connected to a server.
Bridge Secretary Monjur Hossain said the authorities were working to install an Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system at the Padma Bridge but it would not be done before Eid.
On March 20, the Bridge Division held a meeting where recommendations were made for more toll booths on the expressway, keeping extra change at the booths, and stopping unfit vehicles before they hit the roads.
Ilias Kanchan, chairman of Nirapad Sarak Chai, a platform working on road safety, said, "It is possible to curb road crashes if the number of unfit vehicles can be reduced."
Jatiya Press Club President Farida Yesmin also said road crashes would not reduce until the authorities pay more attention to the fitness of vehicles.
A record 5.42 lakh registered vehicles, which should have renewed their fitness certificates, did not do so as of October 15 last year.
Khandaker Enayet Ullah, secretary general of the Bangladesh Road Transport Owners' Association, said it was not possible for the association to track unfit vehicles.
He requested the BRTA to give the local administration and the police a list of such vehicles for taking action.
He said many garment workers hire buses to go home during the holidays and urged factories to give them leave in phases so that pressure on the roads is less.
However, the Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association, of which Enayet is the general secretary, yesterday asked its members "not to rent out unfit and rundown buses outside Dhaka".
Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury, secretary General of Jatri Kalyan Samity, said only one day of holiday before Eid day, expected to be on April 22, is not enough for all to leave the capital.
He demanded the government add another day of holiday ahead of Eid.
Quader said, "We can't bring discipline on the road and transport sectors." He termed it the biggest challenge.
He directed the authorities concerned to sit with transport associations regarding unfit vehicles.
Road Transport and Highways Division Secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri, who moderated the meeting, said they want to set this year's Eid journey as a model.