The plan to relocate four bus terminals in the Capital hasn’t been realized in last 12 years.
The terminals haven’t been moved, even after taking consecutive planning, while traffic jam in the city is increasing due to unplanned bus terminals. The terminals aren’t sufficient to accommodate the increasing number of buses and some of them are seen standing on outside the terminals.
There’re immense accommodation problems in the city due to rising number of personal cars, scarcity of sufficient mass transport facility and mismanagement in vehicle parking. Hence, the authority wanted to relocate the bus terminals from the city to downtown.
They said the place selection for relocation is completed and the process of land-acquistion is going on. Finishing all the necessary tasks, it’ll take two more years to relocate the terminals.
According to them, for building terminals for long distance buses, places have been chosen in Birulia, Hemayetpur of Savar, Baghair of Keraniganj and Kanchpur. If the works of bus terminals is completed, pressure of transportation will be minimized and the terminals located at Sayedabad, Gabtali and Mahakhali will be used as city terminals.
In the 15th meeting of ‘Bus Route Rationalization’ committee arranged by Dhaka City (DSCC) South City Corporation, the details of the matter were discussed, where DSCC mayor and the conveynor of ‘Bus Route Rationalization Committee Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapash and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) mayor Md Atiqul Islam were present.
Emerging from the meeting they told the journalist details about these four upcoming bus terninlas.
Awami League government had taken the initiative to relocate the bus terminals in 2010, but in last 12 years very few progresses had been visible. Rather, unplanned bus terminals along with mismanagement of vehicles have increased the pressure of traffic jam in the city. The suffering of the passengers and terminal-based crime increased as well.
For example, due to the increasing number of vehicle coming to and going from Mahakhali Bus Terminal, traffic jam escalated in highway from Mahakhali to Tongi. The experts think the relocation of this terminal will pave the way to minimize the traffic jams of Dhaka-Mymensingh road to a great extent.
To relocate Phulbaria Bus Terminal to Keraniganj, Mahakhali bus terminal to Tongi, Sayedabad Bus Terminal to Kanchpur and Gabtali Bus Terminal to Birulia, a meeting was held at Prime Minister’s office on 28 July, 2010. That time PM also gave directions to take necessary initiative in this regard.
Transportation Experts said if the terminals are not relocated to the periphery of the city, it’s impossible to solve the traffic jam problems of the city.
Urban experts said as the four terminals is now located in the middle point of the city, even the presence of seven flyovers failed to solve the problems of traffic jam. For the same reason, the Hanif Flyover hasn’t been capable to serve the needs. Joykali Mondir Terminal is located at the Gulistan point of Hanif Flyover, from where many buses leaves for the destinations like Kishoreganj, Narsingdi and Maoya. Hence, traffic jam is visible there all the time. In the same way, long distance bus stoppage have been made in many places of the Capital like Abdullahpur, Mirpur, Kalyanpur, Kalabagan, Arambag and Fakirapool which created a gridlock in the city.
For the overall development in the transportation sector, the proposal of building six inter-district bus terminals exists in the latest Road Service Transport Plan (RSTP). However, in making the overall development planning of last few years, the RSTP hasn’t been followed properly. To realize the panning to relocate terminals outside Dhaka needs Tk 12,000 crore to be completed and the budget needs to be extended if local bus and truck terminals have to be relocated outside Dhaka.
Transportation expert, former executive director of Dhaka Transportation Coordination Authority Saleh Uddin said, “We’re working to relocate four bus terminals. But the fact is the chosen land to be used in building new terminals isn’t in the hand of government fully. We’re in the process of acquisitioning the lands. After it’s done, we’d take initiatives to restructure the land. We expect to relocate the terminals within two years.
@The artcle appeared oon print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on September 26, 2022 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
