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A modern city thrives on efficient mobility
On top of the list of Dhaka's nightmares: traffic. The traffic is actually a vivid manifestation of our deeper urban behaviour: self-centred, undisciplined, and life-threatening to others. Unless the traffic is disciplined, Dhaka can never function as a cosmopolitan place, or even as an efficient urban place. The dream of becoming like Singapore will remain just that: a petty dream. One can meanwhile study Bangkok how it transformed itself from a chaos to an ordered traffic and transportation system.
Another absurdity about Dhaka's roads is that there is none, literally. The same surface of roads that existed in the 1960s is servicing Dhaka now while traffic volume has increased twenty-fold. The city of “ba-anno bazaar and teppanno goli,” the capital city of a nation, has only two premier roads (Airport Road and Mirpur Road) running north and south along the axis of the city's development. And there is nothing. The east-west connections are
More Roads
nominal, and north of Bijoy Sarani there is no connection at all until you reach Asulia. Who dreamed up this madness?
How improbable that a metropolitan, capital city is divided into half by a secured area without a single road cutting across it (the one that exists remain accessible on whims that have nothing to do with a civic order). Ideally the cantonment should move farther away from the city, or if it stays then a number of unhindered, public streets should be introduced along the east-west axis. It is very easy to man the entry to the cantonment at the new intersections. Similarly, Sat Masjid Road should have its natural, straight extension to New Market/Azimpur area thus relieving undue pressure at the Science Laboratory corner. BDR headquarters will only be divided.
We require more roads, both north-south and east-west, and interconnected. What about a water bus system circling the city, following the natural course of rivers framing Dhaka? What about a mass transit railway that both circles and intersects the city, but in both cases gets people off the clogged inner streets and into a faster way of moving? The road to solving Dhaka's traffic woes is short: Roads, roads, we need more roadways! We just need more ways of getting around.
There are cars galore in Dhaka but no parking. Assuming that cars are not going to reduce in numbers, multi-level parking buildings should be erected at different strategic locations. The building should be mixed-use with shops at the ground level, parking on the next five or six levels, and office and commercial facilities at other upper levels. Example: A suggestion for solving the parking chaos on Kemal Ataturk Avenue. The horrid municipal market on the Avenue should be taken down to create a well-designed multi-level parking garage with offices at upper levels. The lane behind the tall buildings facing Kemal Ataturk could be made into a pedestrian garden/mall. Elevated walkways erected on this mall could connect the parking building to all the buildings on the Avenue.
Except for short rides, rickshaws unfortunately will have to go. The vehicle is cute, and rickshaw art is an established genre, but riding it is an inhuman practice. It is taking up too much road and not compatible with the faster moving vehicles. Traffic civility should be a priority. The recent radio programme on traffic and road behaviour is an innovation. What about similar programmes through television and other media?