An Everlasting Gridlock

Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

Fridays, in Bangladesh, are joyful days! A day dedicated to loving your family, chatting with friends, sleeping, cooking khichuri and of course, reading the Star Weekend. A Friday brings out the humane side of an otherwise grumpy bariwallah (landowner), looking for a chance to pounce on his measly young tenants for rent. Fridays bring out the patriotism in you – you suddenly tell yourself that Dhaka city is probably the best city you have ever lived in. On a Friday, one would even try to imitate the singing of birds while eating mangoes on one's balcony.

The bad news is – a Friday is short-lived. The day appears just once a week. The rest of the week is spent in traffic jams, cursing one another and getting therapy for the trauma caused because of the traffic.

The last two weeks, Dhaka city probably experienced some of the worst traffic gridlocks and jams in years. The city was closed down several times - if not for Shri Narendra Modi, the Indian Cricket Team and the rain - Gulshan 1 was closed down till 5 pm on a fine weekday for the launching of a new shopping mall by the prime minister, and that too without any prior warning. "I thought the city was under attack!" says the ever imaginative Zawad ul Alam, a high school student who was trying his best to get out of Niketan and reach coaching classes on time. Niketan is a housing society in Gulshan 1. On the day of the mall opening, the gates of the society were suddenly locked down for 10-15 minutes, causing confusion and even fear amongst the residents. "I remember reading something similar in a super hero comic book once," he rambles. "In the book, the gates to the city were closed down. Gas bombs were being thrown inside the city, while people were trying their best to climb the gates and escape to safety. Eventually, a superhero comes and rescues them all." Unfortunately, in reality, there were no superheroes to rescue the Niketan dwellers to safety.

If not for a minister crossing roads or God sending down rain, the city has been experiencing gridlocks almost every day. While an average teenager living in Delhi or Mumbai manages to go to tuition classes after school, play cricket for an hour afterwards, do his homework and attend dance class or karate class in the evening – and in on one day, an average teenager in Dhaka city would find himself or herself lucky to reach home on time for Maghrib prayers from school on a rainy weekday. "It took my son three hours to reach home from school today!" cries Faria Chowdhury on Facebook, a Dhanmondi dweller, talking about her 4-year-old child. "I don't think I am sending him back tomorrow!"

No matter what we do to make this country a better place, the traffic jams and poor road infrastructure will always make Dhaka the worst livable place ever. "There are many indicators based on which a city becomes unlivable," says Maureen Hassan, project manager at an organisation working towards planning and building better cities. "One of them is how the women are treated – is the city women friendly, how safe women feel while using public transport etc. The other indicator is traffic jams – how frequently it occurs and to what extent. Clearly, after the last few weeks, it is getting all the more difficult for people to do daily activities like going to work on time, doing groceries or even going to the hospital. Today, stepping out of one's home and starting for your destination has become a challenge."

Solving the traffic jam issue is probably one of the most important issues that the authorities should look into. This article calls upon not only the authority, but active citizens of the society, young change makers and those looking to make a difference in the country – create theories, build new plans, get back to the drawing board. After all, escaping to other cities during rush hour is as good as an ostrich burying its head and living in denial.