Unutilised Traffic Lights: Money wasted, streets made dangerous

Traffic lights at each side of Kakrail intersection turns green every 160 seconds. But you would probably get into trouble if you abided by the signal while on foot or behind the wheel.

The traffic lights, bought with crores of taka lent by the World Bank (WB), serve only decorative purposes because the vehicles and pedestrians are controlled by traffic police’s hand gestures.

Approaching the intersection from Hare Road in a recent evening, Monwar Hossain, who just came back to the country after years, saw the lights turn green and as the road was relatively empty, he slowed down his car a little.

But a traffic police signaled him to stop at the last moment and he slammed on the brakes as hard as he could and narrowly avoided being rammed by a bus.

“Had I not been able to stop the car, something terrible would have happened,” Monwar told The Daily Star. “What’s the point of having the costly traffic lights if they are not followed?”

Between 2002 and 2005, a total of 68 traffic lights were set up spending Tk 13.6 crore under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project funded by the WB. The first two sets of lights were installed at Gulshan-1 and -2 intersections.But in a 2006 report, the WB mentioned that the system went out of order due to lack of maintenance.

Under the Clean Air and Sustainable Environment project that ended in March this year, Tk 112 crore funded by the WB were spent between 2010 and 2018 for repairing and installing 100 traffic lights and other intersection infrastructure. The city corporations handed the lights to Dhaka Metropolitan Police. But the latter does not have any monitoring and maintenance capacity, officials said.

Visiting at least 30 intersections in the capital recently, this correspondent found that the lights were working only at six.

At Gulshan-2, a traffic policeman was seen struggling to control traffic flow. Police often use ropes to control traffic at Rajarbagh and Gulshan-1 intersections.

Meanwhile, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority took another Tk-15.6 crore project, funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency, to set up what officials an Intelligent Traffic System at Gulistan, Paltan, Gulshan-1 and Mohakhali intersections. These lights may start operation soon.

Transport expert Prof Shamsul Hoque of Buet said, “We need to have people to look after these traffic lights.  Launching one project after another will only help those who are involved in the projects.”

Asked why the automatic signaling system is not being followed at Kakrail, Traffic Inspector Tariqul Alam said, “Nightingale and Kakrail intersections are only about 100 metres apart. If we follow the same timeframe for each intersection, the tailbacks would be too long.”

Contacted, Chief Town Planner Sirajul Islam at Dhaka South City Corporation said most of the traffic lights were out of order because the DMP didn’t look after them.

Additional DMP Commissioner (traffic) Mofiz Uddin Ahmed said police are working to form a separate division to look after the lights.

“There should be a system in which the intersections are further apart so that traffic can be controlled as per the automatic signals,” he said.