Moghbazar flyover fully opens to public today

The 8.7km Mouchak-Moghbazar flyover that was widely criticised during its construction fully opens to public today with the 4km Malibagh-Razarbagh-Shantinagar section ready for traffic.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to formally declare the flyover open through videoconference at 12:00noon, said Project Director Sushanto Kumar Biswas.

A gathering with the local government minister and high officials concerned would adorn the ceremony to lay the inaugural plaque at Mouchak intersection, he said.

Earlier, the flyover construction had drawn constant public wrath for tattered roads and traffic mismanagement underneath and was marred with accidents and onsite causalities time and again.

The premier in March last year inaugurated the first phase of two-kilometre four-lane carriageway section of the flyover stretching from Shaheed Captain Mansur Ali Sarani near Holy Family Hospital to Saat Rasta intersection (Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Sarani).

Later on, in mid-September last year, LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain inaugurated another 2.25km section of the flyover connecting Bangla Motor and Mouchak.

In May this year, the minister also inaugurated an extended 450-metre section of the flyover stretching between Hatirjheel intersection and Sonargaon intersection across Karwan Bazar level crossing.

Experts have all along said the Tk 85-crore extended section would not bring any significant benefit due to various drawbacks, especially for abruptly landing without passing over the critical traffic junction of Sonargaon Hotel intersection.  

The extension was included midway through the construction drawing flak that it would only add to traffic mess near Sonargaon Hotel.

The Tk 1,219-crore flyover has been built on 311 single piers along the central line of the existing roads with 50 ramps. The premier inaugurated the flyover construction in February 2013.

According to Local Government Engineering Department, the implementing agency of the project, the flyover would help vehicular movement over eight road intersections and three level crossings -- Karwan Bazaar, Moghbazar and Malibagh -- and would also help ease chronic traffic congestion for north-south traffic movement.

However, transport experts dubbed the project as a concrete block in the city heart and said it would facilitate only as an overpass across the level crossing and road intersections for a portion of the existing traffic volume, as the flyover has no provision for right turn.

The LGED embarked on the flyover scheme in early 2013 amid raging controversy with a 2005 layout configuration ignoring mandatory approval of Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority.

The project was originally scheduled to start in 2011 and completed by December 2015, but it started in 2013.

In January 2015, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council approved a revision of the project with an extension of 18 months till June 2017 and an increase in the cost by Tk 446.2 crore.

The scheme is financed jointly by the Saudi Development Fund, OPEC Fund for International Development and the Government of Bangladesh.