<i>Rickshaws in the city</i>
To let them roam free as wild gazelles in Sundarbans or to control/eliminate their movement inside the very rapidly growing capital city of Bangladesh: That is the question. Ever since I returned to my homeland after staying in America for eleven years in 2001, the dilemma of rickshaws and their unparalleled contribution to the world famous traffic chaos in our capital city have been haunting me. I am sure most of us face this very question each and every day as we move to work, to bring kids to and from school, to shop, or just to take a breather from our busy lives. I understand the sentiment of the vast middle class of the city which I am a part of, who feel the necessity of rickshaws in our streets as seemingly there is no other better alternative form of transportation for short distances. But are we sincerely thinking about where we are heading? As millions (in my view countless) rickshaws are poured into (God only knows by whom) the Dhaka city streets without any sense of control, planning, or management; each and every street in this city is increasingly becoming a parking lot for uncontrollable rickshaw-pullers who just ignore any sort of traffic rule or simple common civic sense (Mainly because of their background and lack of education). It is very obvious that they are behaving this way as most of these people were living in villages where no form of engine driven vehicles were around and they usually only had to manage boats with their own hands and they moved very slowly. None of these people have ever received any training from anyone on the safety guidelines of riding on streets with fast moving engine-run vehicles. I always wondered why this very important question was never answered by our city fathers. Surely, it is simply unrealistic to expect that we can move to educate all the present rickshaw-pullers plying the busy Dhaka streets, although that undertaking would be highly commendable. My suggestion is that we cannot help but begin to think about how to eliminate rickshaws from our streets as the condition is getting worse by the hour and soon it will be so much out of our control (If it already isn't) that we will look back and say to ourselves: how did this happen and how did we not think of this before, and what will we do now? So, please think about this. We cannot just wait casually and let the rickshaw eat up every open space on our streets, sidewalks, parking lots, fields, stations and any other place the ever intelligent rickshaw- pullers can find. Rickshaws must be eliminated from Dhaka metropolitan city streets starting now in quick phases, though we know some Bangladeshi great patriotic politicians may just want to utilize yet another group for the sake of the 'country' and its 'people' with riots, strikes, and yeah 'OBORODH'
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