In order to ease the worsening mass transport system across the country and traffic congestion in bigger cities, the rail routes must be modernised and mobilised.
Mass transportation in Bangladesh is in a mess. The situation is abysmal in Dhaka. People have fallen victim to the unruliness in this sector. Reckless driving of buses and minibuses claims several innocent lives everyday. The bus owners together with the drivers and conductors charge a lot more than the real fare while they provide the worst service in buses that are 15/20 years old. Inadequate number of buses compounds the situation. Rowdy motorcyclists run on the footpaths, making them risky for passers-by. CNG-run auto rickshaws are difficult to ride for exorbitant fares. As taxi services are almost uprooted from the streets of Dhaka, several peculiar vehicles are seen to carry passengers regularly. A large number of people are depending on rickshaws across the streets. Private cars are increasing day by day. In the absence of a well-planned transportation system, all these are causing unbearable sufferings to people, forcing them to waste their valuable time, energy and money.
To overcome the sufferings, a lot of debates and discussions are there for many years. Experts and urban planners are offering series of solutions while policymakers are coming up with hollow promises. Not all solutions, offered by the experts, are acceptable as some of those are based on unrealistic assumptions and don't match with the current reality of the country. However, there have been some substantive solutions which have not been accepted to policymakers. Consequently, chaos and sufferings in public transportations continue. It appears that policymakers and administrations are not interested in coordinated and long-term measures; they are rather busy focusing on some quick-fix and overambitious options. Interestingly, almost all policymakers and the majority of experts have one thing in common. They are highly obsessed with road-based solutions. That's why we frequently find suggestions like enhancing road capacity and building new roads and flyovers. The ongoing construction of three flyovers in different parts of Dhaka clearly reflects the obsession with road-based solutions.
In the midst of such debates, scope to consider some easy alternatives is seriously ignored. Policymakers at large have yet to fully analyze the whole situation within the framework of supply-demand as well as under a comprehensive development planning. These are clearly visible in the policy to ignore the rail-based solution. A deep look into the matter will reveal that adopting the rail-based solution will ease horrendous traffic situation within Dhaka city as well as across the country. In this article, I will try to explore the issue in a simple but realistic way.
Let us start with a puzzle. Everyday, roads and streets of Dhaka are loaded with new private cars. It is said that at least hundred new vehicles, where private cars are dominating, are appearing in the streets of the capital everyday. And these cars are also adding disorder to the already distorted traffic management. Thus, a populist argument is there to curb use of private cars to ease the traffic congestions. This argument, however, is definitely not acceptable to affluent as well as upper middle class people. But before drawing any conclusion, we need to know the reasons behind the rise of private cars.
