TRAFFIC congestion in capital city Dhaka is taking away lots of working hours of its residents causing a loss of about Tk 300 crore a day, experts said. But no effective step has been taken by the authorities concerned to ease the gridlock and reduce the huge economic losses, they observed. .Referring to the latest study conducted by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Prof Rahman said, traffic congestion in capital Dhaka causes a loss of about Tk 300 crore a day affecting daily movement of 73 percent of city residents. According to the report almost 60 percent of the time spent commuting by workers in Dhaka is lost due to traffic congestion. But the existing solutions being implemented – flyovers, Mass Rapid Transits, increasing road space – all have done little to address the problem.The first step to minimize the traffic crisis would be to combine the social awareness of an urban order with context-specific technical solutions. The share of private cars in Dhaka’s daily commutes is a negligible 5-10 percent, but private cars occupy a staggeringly asymmetrical 70-80 percent of the road space. In a developing economy, the lack of security on the street and gender-unfriendliness makes cars an attractive refuge. Cars are also the most recognizable icon of social mobility. It is the best way to flaunt your social status on the street. This deeply embedded middle-class sentiment still drives much of the country’s transportation planning. There is very little evidence that the availability of public transportation would directly result in the reduction of private car ownership. Other causes remain the obstruction of key roads for hours for VVIPs – this problem can be easily solved by restricting their movements on side roads or giving them access to helicopters to minimize road jams. De-centralising the economy – ensuring that people don’t have to come to Dhaka to get access to basic public services like getting passports has already started but has a long way to go before all services can be decentralized.The effort to mitigate the traffic problem, thus, must address the socio-cultural roots of our middle-class values. Over 200 newly registered cars enter the city streets of Dhaka everyday. More roads will not solve the problem because they are going to be filled with cars soon anyway. Our planning philosophy should focus on reducing the demand for cars rather than facilitating its unending supply. This must include campaigns for glorifying all forms of public transport so that social stigma does prevail when one travels on them, making such forms of transport more gender friendly so that women feel secure travelling by having designated buses and stops, alongwith a plan like Singapore’s to heavily tax car owners for owning cars. If buying and maintaining a car has a steep cost then it will reduce the demand for them to all but a privileged few.
