Passengers and other road users are suffering immensely in the capital Dhaka due to traffic congestion caused by the parking of inter-district buses on busy roads and illegal bus counters across the city.
The boarding and alighting of passengers from buses occupying most of the roads adjacent to three major inter-district bus terminals in the city cause traffic congestion, which becomes severe at night, while city buses also cause the same problem.
Prime minister Tarique Rahman has recently directed to relocate inter-district bus terminals from the capital to places outside the city to ease traffic congestion.
Leaders of the bus owners’ association, however, said that they needed more time to relocate these terminals.
Traffic management experts said that many studies and discussions had already been conducted, but the government only needed to implement the relocation process to save Dhaka.
Most recently, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police issued a public notice on April 5 by giving seven working days to the people concerned to remove the inter-district night coach counters located at different places and not to board and unboard passengers in any place other than the inter-district bus terminal areas located within the Dhaka metropolitan city.
On Wednesday, the Dhaka South City Corporation started an operation to evict the illegal bus counters outside the Saidabad inter-district bus terminal.
Currently, there are three inter-district bus terminals — Gabtoli, Mohakali and Saidabad – inside the Dhaka city.
For the city service buses, there are two stopover terminals at Phulbaria and Gulistan where no buses are allowed to stay.
Bus owners said that the city service buses also use the inter-district bus terminals.
Traffic congestion is common not only on the roads where the inter-district bus terminals are located but also on roads adjacent to these terminals throughout the day.
The situation is severe at the Mohakhali bus terminal as it is located in the middle of the city.
In the early hours of Tuesday, buses of different companies were seen parked in three rows on the Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Avenue’s one side beside which the terminal is situated.
Beside the rows, other vehicles, including buses, were seen running in two rows.
Passengers on the route alleged that due to parked buses, they face huge traffic congestion to cross the road especially at night.
Huge traffic congestion is also a common scenario in Saidabad terminal areas.
At night, inter-district buses could be seen parked on different roads in Tejgaon industrial, Gabtoli, Gulistan and Saidabad areas.
Many city services buses were also seen parked in Mirpur, Pallabi, Gulistan, Phulbaria and Motijheel areas.
During the busy hours of the day, traffic congestion was also seen in the areas adjacent to these inter-district terminals, including Jatrabari, Gulistan, Motijheel, Mohakhali and Tejgaon areas.
Different bus companies have also built many counters outside these terminals where the passengers buy tickets and get on inter-district buses especially at night in Jatrabari, Shonir Akhra, TT Para, Dholaipar, Malibagh, Kalabagan, Kamalapur and Arambagh areas.
In its public notice, the DMP said that illegal counters, parking and passenger boarding are obstructing the movement of other vehicles in the metropolis, which created traffic congestion even at night.
If the bus owners do not remove the illegal counters within seven days, legal action will be taken as per the Road Transport Act, 2018 and other relevant laws, it added.
A press release issued by the DSCC on Wednesday said that a total of 240 illegal bus counters had been identified between TT Para crossing and Dholaipar near the Saidabad terminal.
DSCC executive magistrate Aminul Islam started a drive on the day to evict these counters gradually and reduce sufferings of people due to huge traffic congestion in the areas, it added.
Before these, on March 24, at a special meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat, Tarique Rahman gave some instructions, including removal of random bus counters and the inter-district bus terminals inside Dhaka city, set up inter-district bus terminals outside the city very soon and use the existing inter-district bus terminals for city service buses.
SM Salehuddin, a former executive director of the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority, said that many studies and discussions had already been done on relocation of the inter-district bus terminals from inside of Dhaka.
‘Everything is ready and complete, only the implementation is waiting,’ he said.
The expert mentioned that the Strategic Transport Plan (2005) for Dhaka recommended the relocation of these terminals outside Dhaka.
He, who was involved in the planning of the STP, also mentioned about the Revised STP (2015-2035) which proposed six new inter-district bus terminals around the capital at Gazipur, Bhulta, Kanchpur, Jhilmil, Hemayetpur and Ashulia.
This plan also proposed that the existing terminals would be used by the city buses.
The Bus Route Rationalisation project also proposed five locations around Dhaka to relocate the inter-district bus terminals, Salehuddin said.
Dhaka Road Transport Owners’ Association general secretary Md Saiful Alam said on Wednesday that buses were currently parked haphazardly because terminals lacked sufficient space.
They planned a rotation system where only a specific number of buses for each route will be allowed in the terminal while the remaining will stay in the owners’ private yards or in government-designated paid parking areas, he said.
Mentioning terminal relocation and construction as a time consuming matter, Saiful said that multi-storey buildings for bus parking could be a solution.
He said that they had urged officials of two city corporations in Dhaka to evict illegal bus counters and stop parking buses in residential alleys in areas like Mirpur.
