[sustran] (Bangladesh) Urban transports in a terrible mess

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                        VOL XI NO 329 REGD NO DA 1589  Sunday, October 17, 2004 
                       
                 
                 
           
                 
           
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                              EDITORIAL  
                                 
                             
                              Urban transports in a terrible mess  
                              Shahiduzzaman Khan  
                              10/17/2004  
                                
                                        CITY'S transport system is in a terrible mess. No plan to improve the system seems to be working. The bizarre traffic congestion, bad shape of the roads and their arteries and ever increasing vehicular traffic are making the condition worse day-by-day.
                              With the month of Ramadan now in progress, city's traffic and transportation problems will deepen further due to increasing movement of the commuters on the streets. This will continue up to Eid-ul Fitr.
                              The authorities are trying to address the issue seriously. They said the Rapid Action Force (RAB) will help the law-enforcing agencies to control the traffic and help ease the transportation problems.
                              A city of 10 million people can hardly withstand the enormous necessity of the ever- growing commuters. Since independence, the growth of Dhaka metropolis has been phenomenal. Records show that about 300 years ago, at the beginning of the 18th century, its population was only 900,000. By the time Bangladesh attained its independence in 1971, it had grown to almost two and a half million.
                              Dhaka's urban problems have reached a crisis level. Its poor live in miserable conditions, the affluent as well as the poor breathe polluted air, and traffic congestion and poor infrastructure services are choking the city's economic growth and diminishing the quality of life. 
                              A few statistics will illustrate the dimensions of the crisis: Seventy per cent of the city's population are poor, and they have access to only 20 per cent of the land area, fifty six per cent of the city's population live in slums and slum-like conditions, less than 30 per cent of the houses have piped water supply, and less than 20 per cent have access to proper sanitation. About 90 per cent of the men and almost all the women and children suffer from diseases, only 20 per cent of the school-age children of slum dwellers are actually enrolled, and their drop-out rate is 80 per cent, and in slums, about 95 per cent of the men and 60 per cent of the women have no jobs.
                              On the urban transport problems, the deficiencies in the city's systems have affected its economic and social performance. Transport has not been managed properly, it has not been planned or developed to meet the needs of the growing city population. This has impacted negatively on the city's growth.
                              The availability of bus transport services has not increased in a planned manner. Reports say a staggering 900 buses were added to the fleet without any feasibility study. The study is required to examine whether these would fit the existing road conditions.
                              The number of unlicensed rickshaws and baby-taxis has been growing. The city's 2,200 kilometres (km) of roads are not properly maintained, and the 250 km of arterial roads, which are suitable for large-scale bus operations, are congested. Seventy three per cent of the road space is occupied by rickshaws, mostly illegal. Infrastructure facilities are inadequate, and the enforcement of traffic rules and regulations is very weak.
                              The cost of time wasted in traffic congestion was estimated at Tk 1.6 billion (160 crore) in 1992. This figure has been now perhaps doubled, given the growth of traffic volume in the last few years and the resultant increase in time delays. Again, the cost of the time devoted to walking long distances by 60 per cent of the commuters is also very substantial.
                              On top of this, the cost of vehicular pollution due to traffic congestion and fuel adulteration is also very high. Estimates say, air pollution in Dhaka causes some 15,000 premature deaths and several million cases of sickness every year. The Dhaka Urban Transport Project, taken up in 1998 to solve city's terrible transport problems, is in shambles due to unusual delays in preparing project proposals, inefficient management of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and lack of coordination among the implementing agencies.
                              The Tk 11.77-billion project, being funded by the World Bank (WB), has already been revised twice and one of its components was transferred to the Roads and Highways Department (RHO) due to poor performance of the DCC. The fate of another component of the project, East-West Corridor Project EWCP) is also uncertain as the World Bank is refusing to fund it due to delay in preparing the project concept paper.
                              The DCC's Tk 1.0 billion road repair project also came under heavy WB scrutiny. When faulty work plan and appointment of inefficient construction firm for the work were detected, the WB immediately cancelled the work order. It released the fund after the DCC revised the work plan and engaged another firm through floating fresh tender.
                              Another component of the project, Traffic Engineering Department (TED) is yet to see the light of the day. The traffic department was proposed to be under the DCC management from Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Even after four years of the proposal, it could not be implemented.
                              What is needed now is to initiate various coordinated interventions to address these problems. The DUTP requires a coordinated initiative to address two complicated issues. First, the project is intended to improve road and road transport infrastructure, and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it will help to strengthen the management, planning and coordination of the transport system network and related activities. The project is expected to identify the city's future needs also and prepare projects for implementation in next phases.
                              The DUTP heralds the beginning of a new, integrated approach to overall urban sector development in Dhaka. It is, therefore, more important than civil works that the planning and coordination activities initiated under this project are sustained and further strengthened by the agencies concerned namely, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB), DCC, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakkya (RAJUK), Bangladesh Road Transports Authority (BRTA), Police and Department of Environment (DoE), which all are supported under the project.
                              The DUTP's success and sustainability largely depend on institution building and sustainability of these institutions. These bodies which will determine the needs of follow-up projects and oversee whether the city grows in a healthy way or chokes with congestion and pollution.
                              The DUTP is only the first of several projects supported by the WB that cater to the urban poor. In Bangladesh, the primary emphasis has been on alleviating rural poverty, which is clearly the right priority.
                              However, cities already account for almost 10 per cent of Bangladesh's poor. In the future urbanisation, the expansion of the urban poor will inevitably outstrip rural growth. Thus, there is a need for increasing attention on the urban poor and to help develop effective ways to alleviate urban poverty, focusing on health, education, job and income creation as well as infrastructure.
                              In order to address the urban transport problems effectively and efficiently, coordination among the implementing agencies is highly important. Reports say most of the departmental heads do not attend the coordination meetings hosted by the DTCB. Such happenings result in delay of the decision-making process. Some of the projects have already suffered a lot.
                              The agencies need to be geared up for proper implementation of the project so that the sprawling city benefits from it in its future planing and progress. 
                             
                         
                             
                             
                                
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