innovation_line
Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:22:15 -0800
Reducing traffic jam in Dhaka and Chottogram - I Expanding the existing roads and constructing new roads are two major ways to address the unbearable traffic jam. There are better ways to do this from policy perspectives. There are also other options that should be used which will be subsequently proposed in later articles in coming days. Todays article describes a major policy innovation option that the policy makers of Bangladesh or any country for that matter should consider. This is particularly useful for Bangladesh context since most of the major existing roads needs expansion and there is an immense need to construct new roads within the populated areas. We also notice that there is a tendency on the part of the government officials to make flyovers, underpass, elevated highways and overpass. While these are totally valid options for any planners, we have a feeling that these projects are being done on a piecemeal basis. This is trademark of our older generation and existing bureaucrats that they do not or can not think in terms of a total city plan or regional plan. It is our apprehension that most of these projects are being pushed by the construction companies, contractors, cement companies. We do not want to say that they should not be lobbying for projects, but the need for a project has to come from a planned policy, rather than business benefits or cosmetic gain or showing off on the part of the government. We also think that the state of our emergency preparedness indicates that we should be very careful about how we go about planning the cities for next 50 years and beyond. Today's road planners also have to consider the future automobiles which are increasingly hybrid which are often less powerful from energy density perspective. Too much slopes are bad for a futuristic road system for any given city in the world - at least for the medium term. Without going into more details, let us focus on the today's topic about how to make more rooms for roads and/or expanding the existing narrow and often spiral roads of Dhaka and elsewhere in Bangladesh. Many of our citizens often credit Ershad for constructing some of the major roads in Dhaka. Two such major roads are Patho Poth and Jono Poth. It is true that we can not imagine how would be the state of Dhaka City traffic without these new roads constructed during Ershad regime. However, we can hardly credit him for doing this kind of projects by the use of mostly force and often corruption. A four year old kid would do the same if he or she is given a chance to build a road! Policy makers and politicians should show a reason why they are in a position where they are entitled to make decisions for others! Let us describe our points. How did Ershad make the lands available for the roads? Use of Brute Force! Whenever the government takes some land (jomi odhigrohon) for a road, two things happen simultaneously. Many people loose their land. Government do not pay in the market rate which makes this even more unfair. On the other hand, those owners, who survives and immediately adjacent to the roads, hugely benefit from this new road. Because of this unfairness inherent to the process, a rat race starts among the owners regarding how to divert the roads few meters away so they survive. Some of the government officials and probably Ershad himself made crores of money from this projects - just during the planning process. Some would say, this money was one of the incentives for crony Ershad to take up some of these big projects. This model is depicted in Figure -1 in the MS-WORD file that can be accessed through this link: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bd_nokia_club/files/ <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bd_nokia_club/files/> The name of the file is "Road Reforms within populated areas.doc <http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/gD7sRaHO7FFNQrVdlWe-EW0CnchkroRgEW-xE9WX4S\ pWcCi7PaeYi-59DuVBLj0USirnOE8J4bm2HqLQXVm4m7ZJj4ZFqdje5aHkMIEf/Road%20Re\ forms%20within%20populated%20areas.doc> " On the other hand, we propose a new model about how to increase the square footage of the roads within a populated area. This model can be used for a new road or expanding an existing but narrow/spiral road. The gist of the new model is as follows: Whenever there is new development in the road system, the price and utility of the adjacent lands increases. The proposed model suggest that this accumulated increased value is captured and re-distributed among the existing citizens so everybody benefits. If this model is used, instead of the rat race similar to during Ershad, a new picture will arrive. Every body will be happy except for the corrupts and thieves. To give some details, three times the needed land will be acquired and the roads will be developed / constructed along with redesigned plans for plots of land on both sides of the roads. The new plots will be given to the old land owners (all). Nobody will loose their total amount but the amount of land for everybody will be reduced to some extant. But the value of the lands that they will own after re-distribution will go up even though their acreage has reduced. The new plan can be seen in Figure-2 at the same link: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bd_nokia_club/files/ <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bd_nokia_club/files/> The name of the file is "Road Reforms within populated areas.doc <http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/gD7sRaHO7FFNQrVdlWe-EW0CnchkroRgEW-xE9WX4S\ pWcCi7PaeYi-59DuVBLj0USirnOE8J4bm2HqLQXVm4m7ZJj4ZFqdje5aHkMIEf/Road%20Re\ forms%20within%20populated%20areas.doc> " In this plan, all the citizens will be eager to construct the road. If properly publicized among the stakeholders, it is our conviction that there will be slew of activities that will start to straighten and widen the roads in areas like Kolabagan, Puran Dhaka, Lal Bag and many other areas. However, there are several preconditions. The government has to support and facilitate these citizens initiative to reconstruct their living zones. A new kind of leadership has to arrive from the ward commissioners, city mayors and other local organizations. We hope that the new political environment will help create to develop and elect such leaders. Local people should get together and brainstorm such projects with the help of city planners. Also, some of the departments ( e.g. BUET architechture, civil and regional planning) can make some remodeled replicas of, say Kolabagan, after several such project within the area. There is also the question of capacity. When such a project will be taken, a huge number of citizens will need a temporary housing before they can move to new houses back. In this regard, the REHAB members can contribute and also benefit from this projects. At the end of the day, every stakeholders will be benefited from this proposed model of land acquisition for roads. Traffic jam will be hugely reduced. This article is to propose and introduce the idea, but the idea itself is highly technical. If there is enough interest, we may be willing to write another detail article based on this one. Or, anybody else are free to expand on this idea. Feel free to communicate if any of you want to take up this opportunity. If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the local government officials, government planners, politicians and policymakers, authorities in roads and highways, LGED and above all, the members of the caretaker government, please forward the article to them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence. Thanks for your time, Innovation Line ===================================================== Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article. We have not seen the Liberation War, but we know if we can free the country from corruption first, we will eventually get to other dreams soon. Because of corruption, we could not even get into information highway for years, let alone other dreams! This is the kind of article for which we started this column. Because of ongoing mess, a gift from our older generation, we often get diverted. Now that it seems some sanity is returning in Bangladesh, we would try to go back to our original plan. =====================================================