Traffic issue
This seems to be the slogan of the authorities who come up with one absurd idea after another in the name of traffic control. The ban on rickshaws on main roads, especially Mohakhali Road is one such example. This main road lies between the residential areas of Gulshan 1 & 2, Niketan, Badda, DOHS etc and the working and educational districts of Banani and Gulshan and vice versa. Thousands of people used rickshaws every day to reach their short destinations in Gulshan cheaply, safely and much more swiftly than it is possible by car.
This is now history, squads of traffic cops are deployed at every entry point in Mohakhali and Gulshan Avenue to stop rickshaws. As a consequence with the advent of the hot season and later on the monsoons, no thought has been given for the inconvenience of a vast majority of the travelling public - school going children, university students, patients, women, disabled, elderly and those carrying small goods to/from bazaars. For them the only place to walk is the main Mohakhali road (footpaths being non-existent, occupied or dug up) dodging the cars, buses and other motorized transport. The results are as expected:
1. Those who preferred rickshaws before now bring their cars out on the road.
2. There is more wastage of foreign exchange using imported fuel, tyres, parts etc.
3. More pollution, noise and traffic deaths through increased speed (an illusion).
4. More traffic jams as is already evident with nary a rickshaw in sight.
5. More cars require more parking places and the side roads around Mohakhali and Gulshan remain jammed. Please visit side roads and foot-paths all around Gulshan and see how parking places on public streets are 'reserved' as a matter of right.
6. Dozens of police now deployed seizing rickshaws can be spared for other more important jobs i.e. catching people buying expensive cars with ill-gotten money.
7. CNGs refuse to ply short distances. No cop can force them to comply with existing traffic laws on meters and refusing passengers with impunity.
What is required are roads where more rickshaws can ply, not less. We do not require private cars to occupy twice the sparse road space, to carry a tenth of the passengers belonging to the privileged class only. As I walk on Mohakhali Road twice a day, I do my best to dodge traffic as nimbly as a 77 year old heart patient can, and 'pray for the salvation of those of our administrators, who have forced me into this mess'.
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