Rickshaw issue
After a long interval, my old friend Mr Rahat of Malibagh has resurrected himself again (“Let's not be biased”, DS 17/08/09) on the subject of the total banning of rickshaws from Dhaka's streets. Once again as in the past, his letter is a kitchurie of pious platitudes, dreams, innuendos and hope, without any pragmatic suggestion to solve the perennial traffic headache. His letter takes me to task for advocating the continued existence of rickshaws. I am proud to do so. I too would like to see the end of the rickshaw within my lifetime, BUT only if there is a viable alternative. The letter “Minister's Position” right next to his letter would perhaps help to educate him, as many of the answers are staring him in the face, but I doubt it.
To repeat the facts once again, that Mr Rahat himself admits in his letter, there are 400,000 rickshaws and about the same number of private cars in Dhaka. Rickshaws occupy about 30 sft of road space as against 72-90 sft for the stretched out Gas Guzzling Monstrosities. Cars occupy more than 75% of available road space while mostly carrying one or no passenger at all, while most rickshaws average 1.76 passengers (50% of Dhaka's population against 1-2% of the privileged class). Rickshaws add around Tk. 10 crore EVERY DAY to the GDP providing livelihood for about 20-25 lakh rickshaw related people, while cars spend much more, much of it in valuable foreign exchange. I will not even mention the air, noise and light pollution of cars, which are additional “bonuses” to keep our doctors busy.
Mr Rahat says rickshaws are the MAJOR cause of traffic jams. If so why is there gridlock on the roads that have been rickshaw-free for many years? He also says that rickshaws are an extremely dangerous form of transport. Yes, they do cause a few scratches and broken limbs (usually after being hit by a car), but they fall far short of the killing spree of thousands that motor vehicles kill and maim and disable every year. But Mr Rahat is an honourable man, so he sheds some crocodile tears seeing a man pulling others in a degrading fashion by which he feeds his family. But not a tear is shed for the 40-50 lakh BE-KAR and BE-BUS men, women, children, old, infirm, disabled etc people who want to get a cheap and fast transport to offices, shops, bazaars, hospitals, schools etc on rickshaws.
I am sure car owners will be glad to read Mr Rahat's revealing the 'truth' that Mirpur Road is free from traffic jams after rickshaws were banned there. My own experience of Mohakhali Road, which was declared rickshaw-free in Ramadan of 2007, suggests otherwise. After forcing the fasting public to walk on the pot-holed road initially, this anti-people rule fast lost steam and was ignored most of the time. Since Jan 2009, rickshaws and cars had become compatible and there was even a perceptible improvement, because many of the saner car owners ( yes, there are quite a lot of them in my neighbourhood) saw the advantage of taking a short and cheap rickshaw ride to their offices in Banani, Gulshan, Niketon etc keeping their gas guzzlers in the garage. Of late the cops are back with a bang (punctured rickshaw tyres), the traffic jams more intense and the tempers of the rickshaw-travelling public more frayed. Is this, the traffic authorities' sadistic response to the masses for the holy month? Are they so under-employed, that they have taken recourse to this method of intimidation once again to provoke the fasting public in the Ramadan of 2009?
Perhaps only the authorities (if any) and Mr Rahat can answer these queries.
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