23 km tailback on the highway of Bangabandhu Bridge

Additional pressure of vehicles and toll collection being disrupted repeatedly because of accidents on the bridge have caused a traffic congestion stretching over an area of 23 kilometres on the Dhaka-Tangail-Bangabandhu Bridge highway.

The traffic congestion starts from Pakulla in Tangail’s Mirzapur upazila up to the eastern side of Bangabandhu Bridge around 4:00am on Wednesday. But, the congestion starts lessening in the morning.

A 23-kilometre traffic jam stretching from Bikramhati in Tangail sadar upazila up to the Bangabandhu Bridge was noticed at the time of this report being prepared around 9:30am. This has caused troubles to the home-bound people.

Police said a pickup van went out of order on the Bangabandhu Bridge on Wednesday morning. It took more than an hour to remove the damaged vehicle.

So, the bridge authorities kept the toll collection closed from 4:15am to 4:53am. Earlier, the toll collection had been disrupted several more times causing the traffic jam.

While traveling from Tangail city bypass to Elenga in Kalihati upazila between 8:00 and 9:00am, heavy traffic jam was noticed on the highway.

Sohel Rana, driver of a Bogura-bound microbus at the Bikramhati CNG station said that he had started from the airport area in Dhaka around 1:00am. He had to face traffic jam repeatedly on his way and it took eight hours to reach Tangail.

Local residents confirmed that vehicles were seen parked in the same spot for hours, early in the morning. But, the situation improved a bit as the day progressed.

In-charge of Elenga highway police outpost, inspector Zahid Hasan said the traffic jam was created because of the accidents on the bridge and the highway.

Vehicles started moving towards the northern region later in the morning and the traffic jam will end soon, he added.