Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘’Inventing the Shoe’’ (Juta Abishkar)’ couldn’t be more relevant. One of the lessons of this poem is a common an with a certain vocation and experience is able to do his work much better than the so-called pundits. The person has a much more effective way of trouble shooting. The problem in the aforementioned poem was that the king’s bare feet were exposed to dust. What would be the solution? The experts and pundits initially gave a solution-all the dust of the earth must be swept away. To sweep away all the dust, the whole world became shrouded with more dust. Then they started to water the earth and the dust turned to mud. The next attempt was to cover the whole earth with leather. The old cobbler advised, “Cover your own feet, so that you won’t need to cover the whole earth.”
The traffic congestion of Dhaka has suddenly worsened and especially the people who live in the west of Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue are facing trouble while traversing east. The people residing in Mohammadpur, Shyamoli, Lalmatia and Dhanmondi re facing horrible congestion when they go toward Uttara, Gulshan, Mohakhali or Moghbazar. This has been happening even more since the partial opening of the elevated highway.
The metro-rail is partially opened. After its inauguration I went with a camera and broadcast live. I was amazed by the metro rail and I felt proud of our country. I still an filled wth pride. I returned home from abroad the very next day after the expressway had been opened. The arrival time of my flight was 9:20 in the morning. After finishing my immigration, I picked up my luggage and reached my Dhanmondi home through a car at 10:30. I was mesmerised with the magic of the expressway. I propagated that through facebook live.
One night at around two I came to Dhanmondi from Diabari through the road underneath the metro-rail within just 20 minutes. We have definitely started enjoying the mega projects. But for some little lack of initiatives, lack of coordination, we have to suffer rather than enjoying the benefits like the cobbler of the ‘Inventing of Shoe’.
The first thing is coordination. We need coordination between different roads, railways, aerial routes, highway, streets, metro, overpass, underpass and foot overbridges. There is an authority for that. But I do not know whether they do the coordination, whether they have authority to do so. And there are different owner organisations for different routes. Some own rail, some highways, some Rajuk, some City Corporation, some river authority and some belong to the bridge department. Whatever project is undertaken by any organisation or authority, there must be mandatory central coordination under a central coordination authority. Otherwise, one project ought to clash with others.
You may observe there are no cars on the road near Sonargaon which is descended through the flyover from the vicinity of the Holy Family Hospital. Waterlogging is there, street kids are seen taking drugs, plunging their noses into polythene bags. Why do not the cars ascend in the flyovers that were built with huge amounts of money? Actually, no flyover is needed for coming left to FDC from Moghbazar as they will go right. The second thing is, we descended that flyover away from Sonargaon, not traversing the Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue. The traffic signal of the Sonargoan intersection is horrible. It takes an awful lot of time to pass it.
The same problem persists in the Bijoy Sarani intersection. At Tejgaon by demolishing the Rangs Building they built a road, which has a flyover, doing more harm than benefit. It had been an intersection of intense traffic congestion and by building a road there it has been made even more intense. Had the flyover from Tejgaon traversed the Bijay Sarani intersection, it might be useful.
Now this has added insult to injury. One has to traverse Bijoy Sarani to ascend into the elevated expressway. The cars coming from the north have been trying to enter Nazrul Islam Avenue by descending to Khamarbari. Now, we, who reside in Dhanmondi, Shamoli, Rayer Bazar, Lalmatia area, cannot go easily to the east. Just imagine how we are feeling when we see the billion-dollar projects that are being taken to eradicate our pains rather augmenting them!
As a regular user of this road, I am submitting my observations:
1. Taking the initiative to open the rest of the elevated expressway as soon as possible, the ramps need to be opened quickly.
2. The work under metro-rail, especially Farmgate to Shahbagh, needs to be completed quickly and the road should be cleared.
3. The road near Tejgaon truck stand, Holy Cross of Farmgate needs to be cleaned and open fully.
4. Inside the Karwan Bazar, the street hawkers have blocked the entire road. It needs to be fully enabled.
5. An underpass, an overpass, a loop—some solution needs to be found for Bijoy Sarani's notorious traffic jams and large signal intersections.
6. A major cause of traffic jams is VIP movement. It needs to be directed that no one other than the Prime Minister and the President can block other roads with VIP privileges on the road.
7. Please stop blocking the streets by holding rallies. And if you have to, give notice from a distance and in advance so that people may use alternate roads.
8. Finish BRTA work as soon as possible.
9. Rickshaws powered by batteries are seen throughout the country but they are banned. Nothing can be more self-contradictory than this. By setting a standard of auto rickshaw, make it open. Otherwise ban them totally and let the people know what your decision regarding the matter is. You have to totally ban rickshaws in Dhaka, today or tomorrow. This should be done after public transport becomes functional and footpaths become feasible to walk. Autorickshaws may be the alternative of rickshaws.
Let me give my two cents. We could not stop honking horns even for a minute, we honk horns in Bangladesh without any reason. This must be stopped. Set a 50 taka fine for honking with a reason and 1000 without any reason.
Implement the ban on polythene. In any form- white polyethene, black polythene- they cannot be used. The fine should be imposed on both seller and buyer. We worship the mighty and ruthless against the weak. Polythene is destroying soil, water, road and drainage of the whole Bangladesh. Mega projects are not needed to solve this problem. An awareness movement and strict implication of law is enough.
* Anisul Hoque is managing editor of Prothom Alo and a writer
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Syed Faiz Ahmed