Metro Rail meets a hitch at Karwan Bazar

With the ongoing Metro Rail project disrupting traffic in the capital city, alternative roads and routes are being sought to ease vehicular movement while the project remains underway. However, Karwan Bazar poses as a hitch to this plan, as most of the area is taken over around the clock by vegetable and fruit wholesalers, tea stalls, restaurants, cloth stores, car parking, mini truck stands and more. Karwan Bazar, the locals say, is a constant chaos.

The main road along Karwan Bazar, that is Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, stretches for 1.2 km from Farmgate, past Karwan Bazar, on to the SAARC fountain. This six-lane road teems with traffic day and night, with commuters often stuck in inordinate traffic jams. And work on the the metro rail project has narrowed the road considerably, increasing the sufferings manifold.

The project has disrupted traffic throughout the city, but Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue is being eyed with more than a little trepidation as it is considered by the administration as a ‘VIP road’. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP)’s traffic division is looking for alternative streets and lanes to keep the pressure off this VIP road. Most of the possible alternatives are occupied by hawkers, mini truck stands and parking lots. In fact, the Dhaka North City Corporation zonal car parking lot has taken up a large chunk of space there too.

The total metro rail project stretches for 20 km from Utara to Motijheel. The first phase, around 12 km, runs up to Agargaon. The project authorities hope that the metro rail will begin operating from Uttara to Agargaon by 2020. The entire project is scheduled to be completed by 2022.

As part of the construction work, the road dividers from Agargaon to the SAARC fountain have been removed and replaced by concrete walls. So the eight-lane road from Farmgate to Motijheel has been reduced to four lanes. Traffic has been moving through these four lanes for the past two years or so. But the traffic is most congested from Farmgate till Karwan Bazar. The road ends at SAARC fountain, where five different roads converge. The traffic jams ‘radiate’ to the other roads from this junction. In order to facilitate traffic on the Karwan Bazar road narrowed by the metro rail project, the pavements have been removed. This, however, has hardly made any impact on easing the traffic, according to a senior office of the traffic division.

According to the traffic division, due to the metro rail work, in February this year 800 cars could cross the SAARC fountain per hour. With work on the project progressing further, now even less than 500 cars can cross this point per hour. This has spread the traffic congestion to other parts of the city. Things get worse in the mornings and late afternoons.

Alternative roads

The traffic division, in conjunction with the metro rail authorities, has devised alternative roads for the stretch from Farmgate to Karwan Bazar and from Bangla Motor to Farmgate. One of the alternative roads runs from Holy Cross College at Farmgate, past the Tejgaon truck terminal railway gate, through Mayor Anisul Huq Road to Saat Rasta Mor in Tejgaon. Another one is from the western side of Bangla Motor, along CR Dutta Road to the SAARC fountain, past Basundhara shopping centre, by Green Road to Ananda cinema hall at Farmgate.

Two other alternative roads are, from the Tejgaon truck terminal railway crossing, by Karwan Bazar to the Petrobangla corner, and from the Tejgaon truck terminal railway crossing to the road in front of TCB Bhaban. To facilitate these alternative routes, the illegal shops and stalls along the road from Holy Cross College to the railway crossing, have been cleared away. The ‘Laguna’ stand has been relocated next to the truck stand.

Managing director of the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd, MAN Siddique, has told Prothom Alo that cars and other vehicles will use these alternative roads. Talks have been held with the local businessmen, the market committee and traffic division officers. He said the problem was after eight at night till eight in the morning when there is brisk business in the market. Truckloads of vegetables and other produce arrive at the market thought those hours. However, from eight in the morning till seven in the evening, the Karwan Bazar inner roads can be used as alternative routes.

Hitches in the alternative routes

The road from Holy Cross College to the Tejgaon truck terminal railway crossing is less than half a kilometre, but is crowded with vegetable vendors, tea stalls, mobile food stalls, cloth stores, cobblers and all sorts of small businesses. Two restaurants had their staves permanently fixed on the footpath. The traffic division issued notices to these businesses in March, to remove these establishments within three days, which they failed to do. The traffic division ran an eviction drive, but met with resistance when trying to remove the ‘Laguna’ stand in from the Bigyan College. The traffic division confiscated six of the ‘Laguna’ vehicles and the stand moved next to the railway crossing. The Lagunas now pick up passengers from there and run up till Mohakhali.

A senior officer of the traffic division said that the hawkers do not sit there from Sunday till Thursday, but are allowed on Friday and Saturday. But the road in front of the Tejgaon truck terminal railway gate is somewhat curved and narrow, causing congestion. The railway authorities were requested to straighten out the curve in the road but they refused to comply.

The two sides of the roads from the Tejgaon truck terminal railway crossing to Petrobangla in Karwan Bazar and on to TCB Bhaban, are almost fully occupied. The Dhaka North City Corporation Zone-5 parking lot takes up a large amount of space there, next to which are vegetable and fruit stalls as well as rickshaw and vans stands. And there are mini truck stands on either side of the road up till Petrobangla.

A senior officer of the traffic division came to inspect the roads on 17 March. He said the two roads were around 60 to 80 feet wide, but even two cars cannot cross each other because it has been narrowed down by these stalls and stands. If these roads could be cleared, the traffic pressure would be considerably eased from Farmgate to the SAARC fountain.

Sources in the traffic division say all the roads around Karwan Bazar will eventually be cleared of these encroachments and used as alternative routes. However, eviction is not an easy task with powerful quarters hindering the process.

Water-logging worries

The Metro Rail authorities and the traffic division are worried about the impending monsoon. If there are heavy rains in June, Karwan Bazar and adjacent areas are inundated with water. Then the traffic congestion will worsen and affect the entire city.

In the meantime, while the road has been widened somewhat with the pavement being removed in Karwan Bazar near the SAARC fountain, pedestrians are suffering. Crossing the road has become hazardous and time consuming. Hundreds of pedestrians cross the road at a time, but there is no scope to build an over-bridge here. And with two metro rail stations being constructed on either side, rain water will not easily drain away.

Chief Planning Engineer of one of the the metro rail project phases, Sarfaraz Uddin, told Prothom Alo, rains will not halt work on the project. But water logging is a matter of concern. Six high-powered pumps will be placed in Karwan Bazar to remove the water. These will run constantly during the rains in order to drain away the water.

* This report appeared in Prothom Alo Online in Bangla and has been rewritten here in English by Ayesha Kabir