Avoidable traffic jam
Much has been said about the horrendous traffic jam that has made the lives of Dhaka city residents miserable. It has become almost a daily nightmare for those who have to commute to work or come out to attend some important work that must be done. While it is true that absence of necessary additional infrastructure facilities is causing this problem, I, for one, strongly feel that it could be considerably eased by managing traffic by police in a better way.
Here, I will narrate a traffic jam which should not have happened. On Saturday, I was going from my Uttara house in Sector 3 to my sister's house in Mirpur Paikpara via Agargaon. My wife was with me. We were hoping that since it was Saturday and offices and schools were closed, we would have to contend with a traffic congestion problem which would be less severe than during the workdays. But it was only a wishful thinking on our part. We started from our Uttara house by car at 11-15 am and having weathered an 8-minute delay at the Kamal Ataturk Road and Airport Road intersection we reached near the intersection, where the Agargaon Road meets Mirpur Road, at 12 noon ( 12:00 pm ). We were stopped by the traffic police, before we could cross from Agargaon Road to Mirpur Road. There we were kept waiting for 42 minutes. It was a hot, windless day and it was very uncomfortable sitting in a motion-less car. Eventually, when we were allowed by the traffic police to move, I stopped the car on Mirpur Road by the ASA Tower and asked a traffic policeman on duty as to what had caused this most unusual delay. He told us that the prime minister was to pass by this point but since she did not arrive at the expected time they had no other alternative except keeping the traffic blocked on the Agargaon Road, and this took all of 42 minutes till the prime minister passed.
And I was wondering, the prime minister's accompanying security people must have been equipped with the latest technology for instant communication, yet why we had to suffer on the road, not to speak of the discomfort we had to endure. The answer was clear. This should never have happened.
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