You think about cycling in Dhaka. Fear usually comes first if you can picture the absolute chaos on the busy roads. Especially when watching massive buses rushing past without any warning, with a rickshaw competing nearby.
Drivers rarely pay attention to cyclists. Pedestrians rarely care about the safety of bicycle riders. The black smoke from old engines burns your eyes every morning. You are just a fragile human on two wheels where every single commute feels like a dangerous battle for survival. Yet, despite all this daily stress, stepping onto the pedals brings an undeniable sense of absolute freedom.
The missing metal shield
We must understand the specific physical danger for bicycle riders. Shibly Mohammad Noman, an IT consultant and regular cyclist in Dhaka, points out a harsh reality about our physical safety.
"Car drivers sit safely inside a secure steel box. Bus drivers sit high above the ground behind heavy metal bumpers. A cyclist has absolutely no physical shield against a heavy impact. A minor mistake by any driver causes a fatal disaster for an exposed cyclist," he says.
The deadly blind spots of unfit buses
The biggest structural danger comes from the local passenger buses. Most of these public buses operate without proper government fitness certificates.
They are completely covered in large dents and broken metal parts. More importantly, they have massive blind spots all around their bodies.
Many do not even have proper side mirrors for basic driver visibility. This creates a very high risk for any cyclist sharing the road.
A bus driver cannot see a cyclist riding right beside the front wheel. This specific structural flaw turns a healthy morning commute into a daily gamble with death.
The limit of our road capacity
We must face a very harsh geographical reality today. MD. Tanvir Hossain is an Assistant Support Engineer at Betopialimited. He commutes to his office daily by cycling all the way from Hazaribagh to Mohakhali, expressing his views on that, saying, "Dhaka lacks the road capacity to support its massive population density. We physically do not have enough street space for the vehicles of such a huge population."
"Many experts may suggest adding more public buses to solve this crisis. However, they overlook the safetyness of bicycle riders, where a bicycle can solve many traffic issues," he added.
The crisis of basic civic sense
Our busy streets lack basic human empathy and patience. Drivers constantly break red traffic signals to save a few seconds; motorcyclists illegally drive on the narrow footpaths. Hawkers are seen occupying major roadsides and city walkways. The ultimate solution to this massive problem is entirely collective. Educated vehicle drivers are a strict basic requirement for a safe modern city.
Smart and small infrastructure
Integrating small but effective infrastructure, such as secure cycle parking facilities near new metro rail stations, can be a good option, allowing commuters to easily cycle from home to the nearest station. They can park their bicycle safely and take the fast train directly to work. The high cost of modern sitting
Most of our daily work time requires sitting in an office chair for eight hours straight. This highly inactive lifestyle is incredibly dangerous for our long-term health. Heart disease and severe diabetes are rising rapidly in our capital city. Cycling remains one of the greatest natural exercises to keep fit today. It burns excess calories naturally and highly efficiently.
Adapting out of absolute necessity
Our beloved city is choking on massive daily traffic jams. Our air is heavily filled with highly toxic industrial pollution. Our citizens are suffering greatly from severe modern lifestyle diseases.
Cycling offers a brilliant, completely green solution to all of these major problems, producing absolutely zero harmful carbon emissions while taking up very little valuable space on the heavily busy roads.
