Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, like other South and Southeast Asian cities, is notorious for traffic snarls that can make even the shortest (in distance) journey frustratingly long. Traffic flow is also unpredictable; if you leave 10 minutes later than planned, what would normally be a 20-minute trip can turn into a two-hour marathon. Although the city has morning and evening rush hours, you are just as likely to be stuck in traffic at 2:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m.
According to a World Bank analysis, over the course of a decade average traffic speed dropped from 21 km (13 miles) to seven km (less than five miles) per hour, slightly above the average walking speed. Another study estimates that if vehicle growth continues at its present rate without improvements in public transport, the average speed will be down to 4.7 km (less than three miles) per hour by 2035. At that point, sensible city-dwellers would leave their cars at home and use their two feet, although that scenario seems unlikely. The World Bank estimates that traffic gridlock eats up 3.2 million work hours per day, a significant impact in an urban area that contributes more than one third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and more than 40 per cent of total employment.
The roads are filled with cars, buses, trucks, auto rickshaws, and tricycle rickshaws carrying passengers and cargo. The fastest-growing species is the motorcycle, with an average of more than one thousand new machines being registered every day. Official estimates in July 2018 put the number of motorcycles on the roads of Bangladesh at 2.27 million, but all transport experts agree that’s a gross underestimate because many owners don’t register their machines. Less than half the drivers of registered machines hold a valid license, so at least one in three should technically not be on the roads at all. Accidents are common, as riders drive on the wrong side of the highway or on sidewalks or carry more than one passenger. Transport Minister Obaidul Quader described motorcycles as “terror incarnate.” In one ten-day clampdown in August 2018, more than half of the 83,000 traffic citations handed out by police went to motorcycle riders.
There would be fewer motorcycles if Dhaka’s public transport system was more reliable. Its challenges are symbolized by the aging maroon-colored Ashok Leyland double-decker buses, operated by the government public transport agency, the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC). It is the Indian version of the Leyland Titan, developed in the UK and a common sight on British city roads until the 1970s. The last was manufactured in 1968; one year earlier, the first Titan rolled off the Ashok Leyland production line, and for many years it was a big seller in the subcontinent. Keeping the fleet on the road is a challenge; old buses go into assisted living and eventually expire in a massive yard outside Dhaka where BRTC mechanics painstakingly salvage their organs for transplant.
Many of BRTC’s single decker buses are also showing their age. Like the buses operated by private companies, they look as if they have run the traffic gauntlet, with their panels scraped and dented, their windows missing or shattered, headlamps broken, their exhausts belching smoke. To offset their appearance, many sport upbeat slogans: God Bless You with his Love, Have a Nice Tour, Super, Hi-tech Travel, Dream Line, All Way First Class, Exclusive Journey, Heppy [sic] New Year. The government estimates that about 4,500 private buses, owned by almost 2,000 small companies, are on the road in Dhaka, competing on a maze of 165 routes.
Many of the auto rickshaws, the CNGs, are also casualties of the daily jousts and stand-offs on city roads. Because they are smaller than buses and cars, their operators, who sometimes stretch their leg muscles by propping their feet on the handlebars while driving, believe they can squeeze into the smallest gap between larger vehicles. Passengers on the narrow bench seat—it can accommodate three or four Bangladeshis or one or two reasonably well-fed Westerners—are not protected from accidents, but at least they do not have to clutch their bags tightly while stopped in traffic; a heavy metal grille door, locked from the inside, insulates them from beggars and purse-snatchers.
The government has announced ambitious schemes to relieve the city’s traffic crisis. It plans to build five metropolitan rail lines to carry 60,000 passengers an hour and two dedicated BRTC bus routes to carry 20,000 passengers an hour. It has promised to build 750 miles of new roads, three new ring roads and six new interchanges by 2035. Passengers will be able to use smart cards on metro rail, BRTC and water taxi routes. But congestion is likely to get worse before it gets better. A new subway system, currently under construction, has led to the closure of some roads and reduced the number of lanes on others.
“Like other cities of the developing world,” writes Jay Rosen in the New York Times, “Dhaka is both a boomtown and a necropolis, with a thriving real-estate market, a growing middle class and a lively cultural and intellectual life that is offset by rampant misery, poverty, pollution, disease and terror attacks. But it is traffic that has sealed Dhaka’s reputation among academics and development specialists as the great symbol of 21st century dysfunction, the world’s most broken city.”