Although 60 per cent of the construction work for the Chattogram Elevated Expressway has already been completed, serious flaws in the design have only just begun to emerge. The Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) had undertaken the 16-kilometre mega project in 2017, to be built at a cost of Tk 3,000 crore spanning from Lalkhan Bazar to Patenga, to ease traffic congestion in the port city.
Fingers are now being pointed at everyone, but most believe the culprit-in-chief behind the elevated expressway is allegedly the CDA, the implementing authority for the project. While the CDA is slinging mud in return, bad reputation is a hard thing to shrug off, and the CDA has already gained it through a series of mistakes over the years. The CDA’s other flyover traffic management was also found flawed. Earlier, the 5.2-km Muradpur-Lalkhan Bazar Akhtaruzzaman Flyover had to add new loops to cope with the traffic. In the same way, the CDA added an extra loop to the city’s Bahaddarhat flyover, which allegedly began to develop cracks in November last year.
According to city planners, the big concern is that the Outer Ring Road, Elevated Expressway, Airport Road and Bangabandhu Tunnel all meet at the same junction, but there are no U-loops, U-turns or even service roads. They fear that vehicles would then be stuck in a huge gridlock, waiting their turns, instead of being able to hop onto the road they need to take. Experts believe it will only add to commuters’ woes. There were allegations that the expressway was conceptualized without consultation with anybody concerned. Even the initial feasibility study was done without holding any discussions with the traffic department. Now halfway through its construction, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority and the CDA have decided that the expressway would need U-loops and U-turns. Thus, a new blueprint is being prepared, five years after the project was started.
To make the elevated expressway infrastructure suitable for its full use, Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) has conducted a survey on traffic management at various points of the expressway and identified many flaws. The project director also agreed that they have been asked to do some design reforms. There is no denying that we have cultures of impunity that negatively affect all aspects of our social life, and the elevated expressway is no exception. We believe flawless transportation is good to take our economy ahead, but that will only take us halfway to our real goal in absence of honest leadership.
