Public transportation is the perfect solution of traffic jam In Bangladesh

EVERYONE IS FACING THE PROBLEM

Think of a day when someone close to your heart needs immediate medical assistance. Your ambulance stucked in traffic jam. But who is there solve the situation? Two hours passed, you reached the hospital, But Alas! It’s already too late. This is a common scenario in Bangladesh. Everyday many people’s life are falling under danger just because of traffic jam.

Everyone among us is somehow being affected by traffic jam. To have a better understanding of the fact , let’s have an example, a person who leaves home two hours before the office time, not because it is too far but because of traffic jam. Everyday he loses nearly 1.30 hour in the traffic jam. If calculate this properly you will find he is losing almost 20 days every year! I know this is shocking. No one would wish to kill 20 days a year. Have you ever thought how much time you are losing just because of traffic jam? So we need to put an end to this using the best solution we have.

The reason of traffic jam & solution

In Dhaka city, 70% of the road space is occupied by private cars, said by Anumita Roychowdhury executive director of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). This is not only causing traffic jams but also creating other problems like pollution. In a car generally one to three persons travel but it is having most of the share of the road space.

Citing the findings of Buet, Anumita also said “walking makes 62 percent share of the daily total trips in the city, rickshaws 13 percent, buses 10 percent, three-wheelers six percent and cars only four percent.” We are having problem just because of this 4 percent of people. They are killing their own and everyone else’s time. One thing can be said for sure, Only for 4% people we 96% people are suffering. This should not be continued. This is where public transportation should take place.

The worst situation is when, School hour ends, in Dhaka we see thousands of cars each one is just for a kid. Here we can introduce school bus which can transport 30 to 50 students depending on the size of the bus. Number of buses and should be increased without thinking. Government should put restriction on the private cars. Public awareness is needed to be raised. Traveling in buses or trains has no connection with one’s image. But it can help the country and every living person in a great way. “Increasing the present share of trips by buses to 60 percent is vital to address traffic congestion and air pollution” in Dhaka, she said.

Why public transportation is the better solution

Some people might say, there are other solutions. They basically would vote for increasing road space, constracting more flyovers, Introducing metro train service etc. All are reasonable calls.

Several steps have been undertaken to reduce traffic congestion in Dhaka city, such as imposing restriction on the entrance of trucks in Dhaka during daytime, banning of cycle rickshaws in different roads, changing the time table of the trains, changing the lanes of public transport, construction of foot over bridges rather than zebra crossings, construction of flyovers, and so on.

Now a question arised in my mind, Do you think all these has impacted greatly? If you ask me I don’t realize much of a difference. Still I lose nearly 30 minutes time in jam. Why we are not getting success?

The answer is quite simple, Everyday the use of private transportation is increasing. Doesn’t matter How many km of roads is increased or how many flyovers are being introduced. If we fail to discourage people to use private transportation and introduce public transportation this problem will remain a problem.

Adopt public transportation a save time save the country:

We can’t let people die just because of traffic jam. Can’t let people lose their valuable time because of traffic jam. Killing time of general people means killing time of the country. Trucks containing goods remains stucked for hours, Containers fail to reach the port in time. Production of industries remains stopped. Traffic jam, doesn’t matter if we are realizing or not is affecting the whole economy.

The proposal of highly relying on public transportation might not be liked by some people. But we should look at the bigger picture. Just because of some people’s luxury we can the put the whole country down. We should adopt public transportation as our main transportation system.