Dug-up roads add to traffic woes  

Shafiqur Rahman, an employee at a private firm in Eskaton, left his Rampura home by car for the office on Wednesday morning. It took him about an hour to reach the main road. Then, his car stood still in one place on the Rampura-Mouchak road for about half an hour. Seeing the two-way traffic jam on the road, he ditched the idea of going to work at the office and went back home.

Not only Shafiqur Rahman but just about every person in the capital is facing traffic jams when they go to the office or any other kind of work.

After 10 August, when coronavirus restrictions started being lifted all over the country, the city started to return to normal. The number of people in the capital has increased with all lockdown restrictions removed.

Traffic congestion has increased in the capital with roads being dug up and an increasing number of vehicles. Traffic jams also took over on flyovers in many places and many left for their destinations on foot. Due to metro rail work, the main roads have narrowed and some roads have been closed from time to time.

There have been heavy traffic jams in Tejgaon, Moghbazar, Paltan, Shahbagh, Science Lab, Bangla Motor, Karwan Bazar, Dhanmondi ,and other major roads of the capital, since Wednesday morning.

Asma Khatun of Bangshal, told TBS, "I leave home around 8am for the office to start work at 9am. It usually takes 30-35 minutes to reach my office in Farmgate but today it was half past ten before I could get to the office."

She added that for several days now, there has been digging and roadwork on the main road in Bangshal, causing traffic congestion in the area.

A few traffic officials from various Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) zones, said roads in different parts of Dhaka have been taken over in some places to house equipment for the ongoing metro rail project.

The movement of vehicles is also being hampered by various public utility agencies digging up places, agencies such as the Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Ltd (BTCL), Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa), and Titas Gas in several places of the capital, including Tejgaon, Bangshal, Matijheel. All this has only made the traffic jams worse.

Ramna Zone Assistant Commissioner of Traffic, Refatul Islam, told The Business Standard (TBS) that traffic congestion has gone up this week compared to last week.

"In this zone, the traffic is heavy on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The main cause of traffic jams in Dhaka is the digging of roads in different areas. Due to the coronavirus, the development work of various service providers has been delayed and the workload has increased," he added.

Syed Nurul Islam, joint commissioner (Traffic) of DMP, told TBS that 25% of all space available is needed for traffic movement in an ideal city but there is only 6% in Dhaka. Also, an ideal city is supposed to have 4,000-5,000 people per square kilometer but Dhaka has 10 times more people.

"As such, our Dhaka city is not an ideal city. In the first place, there is less space for traffic movement in Dhaka and on top of that about seven percent of our space is at present taken  over by the metro rail work," he added.