EDITORIAL

How important is transportation, really? People talk about it all the time, its problems and nuances become matters of national discourse, entire Facebook groups of thousands of people are dedicated to discussing and meme-ing it. But is all of that warranted, or does transportation have an outsized influence on its surroundings? Because at the end of the day, people are still getting places. They're late, they're tired, but most of them are getting to their destinations, right?

Things change when you think of this issue in terms of hours lost in traffic or lost waiting for buses and trains. Think about the money lost by the accumulation of the extra five taka a passenger has to pay the bus conductor every day simply to avoid a confrontation, or the years lost from their lives when one considers the toxic fumes they have to inhale because bus owners simply refuse to comply with vehicle fitness regulations. If these human level sufferings fail to make a mark, think of the productivity lost because of all this, and what damage it does to the economy.

Transportation is everything. It needs to be fixed.