Transport crisis and children's going to school

Traffic jam, transport crisis and children’s going to school

Dhaka is a peculiar city in many respects. It witnesses serious traffic jam in one hand, on the other the crisis of transports has made the life of the city dwellers hell. The office going people, commuters and the children going to school and coming from schools face the worst portions of the problem. The number of vehicles is far less than the existing population of the city. And more peculiar is city dwellers have to spend a huge amount of time every day on the streets due to heavy traffic gridlock.

It’s a common scene every day that hundreds and thousands of commuters and passengers crowd in thousands of spots to catch vehicles. They are to wait impatiently and as soon as a vehicle arrives they frantically try to get into it. This is mostly during going to office, school and college and the same scenario repeats when office and educational institutions break up and it continues long hours and sometimes all day long when any political meeting takes place in any part of Dhaka. Office goers become late to reach office and become mentally upset as it continues throughout the year. Thinking to catch a bus itself is a matter of tension whether they will get it or not. This abnormal situation contributes to increasing the number of private cars. Having a private car in the city stands as a symbol of security. How can you expect to go to your destination with your wife or kids or both when the traffic situation poses so abnormal? CNGs and rickshaws will not go to your destination even if you wait for hours long. Rickshaws are for short distances but they are not allowed in all the roads which further discourages them to take passengers for all the destinations. To mitigate the sufferings of the city dwellers the authorities must introduce big buses to be plied on the streets from very early hours to late at night at a regular interval (every two minutes). The small and scattered bus companies, CNG owners must be made united to form big companies. Already it is learnt from the newspapers that the mayor of Dhaka North has talked to 190 transport companies to squeeze them into five to bring about discipline and uniformity in transport sector. It must be done immediately and more government and private partnership endevours  should  be developed in this sector. We also learn that a huge amount of idle money is waiting in the banks. We can utilize the money to bring discipline in transport sector. The government is trying to implement some long term projects to solve the traffic congestion but to meet the scarcity of transport no tangible effort is discerned yet. 

The authorities hold unawareness of the people about traffic rules, narrow roads, unfit vehicles, reckless driving and showing disregard towards traffic laws responsible for traffic jam. We have also different experience in this regard. The members of armed forces were invited several times previously  to control the traffic of Dhaka City and 90 percent traffic jam disappeared when they stood on the roads despite the problems mentioned at the beginning of this para. It clearly indicates the inefficiency of our traffic police who mainly remain busy with other sort of business. The authorities must take this fact into serious consideration.

During the period of 1991-2002 Dhaka city saw many buses on almost all the big roads and the passengers had to ride in those buses buying tickets from the ticket counters available at the roadside ‘. Passengers developed a good habit to ride those buses. They maintained discipline to ride the buses.  Unfortunately, uncontrolled ‘toll collection ’by mastans and the chasing of the ticketing people by sergeants on the plea of occupying footpaths have killed the good system.  When good amount of transport will be available in the city, people will feel discouraged to buy private cars.  When private cars will not flood the streets, the traffic situation can be more disciplined and fair.

All the educational institutions must have their own transports to take the children from certain places to schools and colleges. They need not wait for public transport which increases their tension and they cannot manage time to reach the classes and give concentration on their lessons. In all the developed and developing countries we can see that the schools have their own transports. Even you can see it at Kathmandu. You will see there that school buses are carrying the students and no traffic jam develops around the school campus. Can’t we follow it? In developed countries you see the yellow buses carry students. Another interesting thing is, no private car or public buses stand close to those yellow buses as children may run to and fro and may meet accident. This bears their sign of  honour towards children who will lead the nation in future. We have miserably failed to show this honour towards our children. They stand beside the streets to catch a public transport but nobody bothers about them even though they cannot manage a transport. Even, they cannot reach the examination halls on time either due to traffic jam and scarcity of vehicles.

Hundreds and thousands of private cars, office cars ply on the streets without any passenger except the driver or one or maximum two passengers. At the same time we can see hundreds and thousands of school going children remain engaged in requesting rickshawpullers or CNGs one after another but they don’t agree to go to school. The same thing happens when they come home after school break up. The experience with CNGs proves further difficult and harassing. Why do they do that? We always tell tall talks but in reality we hardly do any genuine work for the citizens. We have miserably failed to establish the commuters and passengers rights which is a fundamental right of citizens. What happens in other countries? The passengers’ first get into a transport and law tells the drivers to take the passengers without asking any questions ‘where they will go.’ They don’t have any right to ask the passenger this type of question. The drivers’ duty is to take passengers first. The passengers will tell the drivers to go to their direction and destination after riding the vehicle. Thus they have established the right of the passengers.  More interesting is, the taffic police keep standing to help and control the whole affair. They stand in the airport, stations and any important places to make this citizen facility available to the passengers. What about our traffic police? You see them everywhere but their business is different. They don’t bother about whether any passenger or commuter or children get the vehicle or not. They just bother about stopping the cars, CNGs, Lorries, pick up vans for some reasons known to all. They are very much attentive to catch the vehicle which will give them much monetary benefit. Hell the traffic jam and problems of city dwellers. Should we stare at this scene?

Law must be made that all the vehicles – public or private must- give lift to the students waiting for transport for going to school and coming from school. Any vehicle must stop to take any student with uniform when he/she raises hand even if the guardians are with them. This will not only develop their fellow feeling, it will also help minimize traffic jam which is every citizen’s expectation.