Metro rail construction: Alternative traffic management planned [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Metro rail construction: Alternative traffic management planned

Local December 10, 2016

The authorities have planned alternative commuting systems between Mirpur and Motijheel with a view to mitigating commuters’ suffering due to the construction of metro rail scheduled to begin in June.
The planned shuttle minibus service on a circular route and two new routes for other vehicles will help residents of the large swath of the city to avoid transportation hassles, officials at Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project hope.
They are also planning to clear roads and footpaths in the construction areas to ensure smooth traffic and pedestrian movement.
Road safety experts, however, are of the opinion that the construction work will certainly create congestion on the busiest road of the capital but the point is how to mitigate public sufferings because of this.
Under the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, the 20.1 kilometre MRT line 6, popularly known as metro rail, will connect Uttara 3rd phase with Bangladesh Bank at Motijheel.
Currently, relocation of underground structures of different utility agencies is ongoing on at Kazipara and Shewrapara.
DMRTDP project director Md Mofazzel Hossain told New Age Tuesday that they were planning to use the road’s median and two lanes for the project and to keep two lanes open for minibus.
‘We want to introduce a shuttle minibus service on the new circular Pallabi-Farmgate-Pallabi route on two lanes on the main construction route,’ he explained.
The project office, he said, was also planning to introduce two new routes.
The first route starts at BRTC bus depot at Pallabi-Kalshi and goes through Dhaka Cantonment-Jahangir Gate-Rangs Flyover-Tejgaon-Kakrail-Bangladesh Bank.
The second route starts near Mirpur Cantonment and then it goes through Mirpur 1-Kalyanpur-Shymoli-Asad Gate-New Market- Dhakeshwari National Temple route.
Mozammel said that if the Agargaon-Mirpur link road, popularly known as 60-feet road, could be prepared during main construction, it would be very helpful.
‘We have, meanwhile, urged the city corporations to clear the roads and footpaths in the metro rail project area,’ he said.
Admitting the probable public suffering, BUET professor Shamsul Hoque, also one of the directors of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited, told New Age that avoiding traffic disruption in the area, which was the capital’s spine, would be next to impossible.
‘It is not easy to divert a VIP corridor in Dhaka where there is little or no scopes for alternative,’ he observed.
He suggested night time construction, relocation of entire utility service lines before construction, alternative route, shuttle route for public transport, full restriction on movement of small vehicles, especially rickshaws, and 100 per cent clear footpaths in the project areas.
‘Dhaka is for us all. So everyone has to share the pain in a distributed form during metro rail’s main construction work,’ he added.
About the alternative route, Dhaka North City Corporation chief engineer Brig Gen Md Syeed Anwarul Islam said the then Dhaka City Corporation had taken the Mirpur Grameen Bank to Agargaon Connecting Road Project to construct about 3.6 kilometre road for east-west direct connectivity in 2007.
Although the original proposal was for a straight road, some structures were constructed on the proposed alignment after 2007, he said.
Recently, they submitted the project’s revised development project prophorma to Planning Commission with little changes in the proposed route, he informed.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner for traffic (west) Liton Kumar Saha said that they were regularly consulting the DMRTDP office about how to manage traffic in the project areas.
It would take some more time to fix special strategy and number of forces to be deployed in project area, he said.
The metro rail will cost Tk 21,985 crore, of which Japan International Cooperation Agency will give Tk 16,594 crore and the rest will be given by the government of Bangladesh.
There will be 16 stations on elevated metro rail route at Uttara (north), Uttara Centre, Uttara (south), Pallabi, Mirpur 11, Mirpur 10, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Agargaon, Bijoy Sarani, Farmagate, Karwan Bazaar, Shahbagh, TSC, Press Club and Motijheel.
The rail service is scheduled to open in 2019 and it will take 37 minutes to cross the route and carry 60,000 passengers per hour.