Grand projects fail to address traffic gridlock

The government seems fixated on flyovers and mega projects, which have always been plagued with cost overruns and years of delay. The construction of the 8.7km Moghbazar flyover for instance was supposed to start in 2011 but ended up with a two-year delay and was finally completed in 2017—resulting in a cost overrun of nearly Tk 450 crore. It not only failed to relieve congestion during peak hours but was plagued with design flaws. At the end of the other spectrum, we have Dhaka's first U-loop near Rampura TV Station that cost a mere Tk 45 crore and two years to build; it has helped residents from the Banasree area to get to Badda, Tejgaon, Kawran Bazar or Moghbazar bypassing the Rampura-Banasree intersection altogether!

Indeed, experts agree that authorities need to focus on cost-effective solutions like elevated U-turns and underpasses to keep traffic moving in the city's several chokepoints. Naturally, low-cost projects do not interest big-time contractors as there is no possibility of running into the hurdles of underground power lines and sewerage networks that help extend timelines beyond project periods, which in turn, help inflate costs—glee for construction companies, years of pain for commuters.

We need to construct U-turns, loops, underpasses and overpasses in this heavily congested city of ours, where the average speed of vehicles on roads has come down to a paltry 7km per hour costing the national economy an estimated USD 2 billion in lost productivity. We have the expertise to get these projects off the ground in short periods of time and they need to be prioritised at the policy level.