Automobile menace
Hats off to Ms Farzana Afrin of Mirpur for her above letter printed in DS of 10 Oct 08. She has in short, logical and factual sentences portrayed an accurate and realistic picture of the traffic gridlocks that have brought Dhaka to its knees. She has described the evils of free parking on public roads as a major cause of tailbacks, even when there are laws against it.
I am sure, if read avidly it will have more effect than the 26 previous letters I have sent to DS in the past 12 months. She has done it all without once mentioning the dreaded word RICKSHAWS.
I would just add one other point to her narration: There are two main and necessary systems of public transportation.
1. Mass transit systems consisting of buses, human haulers, minibuses etc that ply on set routes, usually the main roads.
2. The other is point-to-point transport that takes one from doorstep to doorstep i.e. from home to office, shops, schools, friends etc. Into this category falls private cars, CNGs and rickshaws. Only a privileged minority (1-2 %) own cars (but occupy 75% of the roads), perhaps another 30-35% have the physical ability to use the ramshackle, tortuously designed, ancient buses, minibuses and haulers. Maybe 10-15% are lucky to be able to hire and to afford the arrogant CNGs.
This leaves a vast majority (approx 50%) of the elderly, women, children, disabled, sick, infirm and people carrying small loads, of the middle and lower classes who totally depend on rickshaws for their mobility. Yet it is this cheap, easily available, environmentally friendly and productive segment that has been totally blamed for the traffic jams and banned from many main roads. IS THIS SOME NEW SORT OF DEMO-CRAZY ?
I invite those who have passed this BLATANT anti-people law to garage (on the road?) their cars for a month and let them and their families use the public transportation available like the rest of us. Then if they 'like' being ejected from rickshaws by their lackeys in all weather conditions, day or night, and if they then think this decision to ban rickshaws is in the public interest, I will personally applaud them for their 'astuteness'.
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