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Editorial

Bridge building anomalies

It is the government that must bear the final responsibility
16 October 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
Experts of Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology has made a ringing pronouncement on our pathological indifference to safety concerns pertaining to designing of Salehpur bridge over the Turag river and its construction on Dhaka-Aricha highway. Two major structural deficiencies of the elevated bridge came to glaring light five years ago: lack of crash barriers and raised walkways on either side of the approach to and exit from the bridge. Experts wanted these defects redressed urgently. Yet, all these five years the suggestion went unheeded by the design and safety wing of the Roads and Highways Department, which is why, in a large measure, the latest human tragedy struck near Amin Bazar. It's a shame that the safety wing of the Roads and Highway Department despite being formed some ten years ago, has started the rudimentary work of identifying defects in highways and bridges only since last year going by the admission of a R&H top official. More appalling is the fact that even deficiencies pin-pointed by experts have not been corrected. Furthermore it's a great pity why in designing a bridge which has already caused 50 accidents in two decades, adequate safeguards were not built into the structural design and into the eventual construction. Indeed, a countrywide survey will have to be immediately undertaken to spot all the accident-prone highway bends and bridges and corrections carried out through a time-bound comprehensive plan of action. Actually, the study should be inclusive of all bridges, at least two categories of which make a scandalous spectacle: the large number of those across the rivers around Dhaka which fall short in height so much so that standard cargo vessels risk being hit by the undersides of the bridges, particularly in monsoons. The least said about misplaced or half finished bridges stringing out as corruption memorials and reminders of waste of scarce resources the better. But nobody is held to account for these extant monuments of mal-governance. We conclude on a very important note. There is a fundamental flaw in the human resource provision as far as the Roads and Highways Department goes. It is primarily manned by civil engineers dealing with highways and bridges which have to do with an expectedly modern, dynamic and safe transportation system. Transport engineering, a much-needed specialty devoted to road, highway and bridge engineering as linked to safer public transportation and mobility being the vital tool of economic development is conspicuous by its absence in our context. We must have transport engineers inducted into the Roads and Highways Department.

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