Your worst nightmare
Liton Rahman / DRIKNEWS
Enough has appeared in the newspapers about motorized vehicles i.e. cars to make us aware of their “benefits” they crowd the roads with 7 times their capacity, they occupy 50-60% of road space, they carry only 2-5% of passengers, they park here, there and everywhere with impunity, they are mollycoddled with hundreds of crores of expensive electronic toys just to ease the passage of empty/half-empty cars, they pollute the air and deafen the people, they kill or maim hundreds of pedestrians, they drain out foreign exchange and inflate the egos of the nouveau riche. Rickshaws/rickshaw vans carry over 50% of people and goods. Occupy only 30-40% of road space, do not pollute while providing a livelihood to 20-25 lakh poor people. Yet it is they who get blamed for causing traffic jams and are banned from so-called VIP roads without any effect on the jams. Let us imagine a Dhaka without rickshaws and vans: 1. Attendance in schools will drop by 50%, leading to illiteracy and all its ill-effects on the economy. 2. Attendance in offices, shops, bazaars etc will drop by another 50% to paralyze the economy. 3. CNGs and buses will raise their fares and become even more selective. 4. Prices will rise and availability fall, of all food-stuffs and household goods as their movement from factory/wholesaler/retailer is restricted. 5. More pedestrians will obstruct roads causing more accidents. 6. Thousands of small shops, grocers, service providers etc will down shutters due to high cost of transporting goods and non-availability of customers. 7. Most important, the honest livelihood to nearly 25 lakh rickshaw related people and their families will be endangered causing social upheaval. Experts, I am sure, will be able to give dozens of other plausible effects on our social, economic and political life. Five percent car-owning voters will give their smiling YES votes to the government that bans rickshaws completely while there will surely be a 95% NO vote. Thousands of additional cars will be imported to fill in the vacuum, so that the traffic which now, just barely crawls, will eventually come to a standstill, leaving Dhakabashis living like zombies in their pigeon-holes. Law and order situation? well, that is for the government to handle, if they can.
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