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Tailback at the foot of Mohakhali flyover

Chy Correspondent
It was 9:30 on Thursday morning. The left lane of the Mohakhali flyover leading to Jahangir Gate intersection was devoid of any traffic save some pedestrians strolling on the scant pavement.
With eyes on the empty flyover that lay before him, a grey haired driver of CNG three-wheeler hurled curses at the bus blocking his path. The yellow, hulking, roaring mass of metal had its head directed towards the street leading to Mohakhali rail crossing, and its rear barely a couple of feet away from the road divider.
"How stupid," bellowed Sultan, the three-wheeler driver. "Even a two wheeler cannot squeeze through that space."
"Someone opting for the street towards Mohakhali is supposed to take the left lane. But the bus driver overtook the cars and blocked the whole right side of the street. This is not fair," hesaid.
Behind Sultan's three-wheeler hundreds of buses, private cars, covered lorries, three wheelers and taxis are stuck, most of which are bound for the flyover. The impatient motorists honked incessantly, while many turned off their engines and helplessly looked around. Some frustrated passengers even got off the buses and started walking.
For anyone traversing the Mohakhali Flyover on regular occasion, this sort of experience is anything but rare.
"It sometimes takes around 30 minutes to reach the flyover from Kakoli point," said Shujon Ahmed, a resident of Banani.
"Cars going towards
Mohakhali almost always occupy most of the street space, blocking the vehicles bound for the flyover. This tailback often stretches up to the Kakoli intersection," he said.
"I am surprised why traffic officers have not divided the lane leading to Mohakhali rail crossing after all the everyday chaos. This would have kept the vehicles bound for Mohakhali to stay left without straying into the right," said Sharmeen Akter, an undergraduate student who passes through the flyover everyday to reach her university.
"Of course they would need to deploy traffic police there to make sure that vehicles follow their lane accordingly, otherwise the lane divider will be of little use," she said.
On-duty traffic officers at Kakoli intersection told this correspondent they are aware of the problem.
"Sometimes some cars and buses stray into the left and block the path of vehicles going to the flyover. Some buses also drop of passengers at the entrance to the flyover and block the flow of traffic," said an on-duty sergeant who was monitoring the traffic near Cantonment.
"We. are considering putting a lane divider on that stretch of the street. Hopefully, this will be implemented pretty soon,” he said.
The Mohakhali Flyover, constructed earlier in 2004 to reduce traffic congestion in one of the city's most busiest intersections, has been providing little relief to commuters using the flyover or the road beside it.
The situation sometimes becomes unbearable for those traversing the flyover, especially during peak hours. At most instances, the entrance and exit of the flyover are jammed with vehicles blocking road space at the landings.
"What a blunder I made by taking this trip! It is going to take more than two hours to reach Dhanmondi. I will have barely enough time today to take other trips and recover the loss from this trip," said S M Manik, a CNG taxicab driver who was stuck at a tailback near the entrance to the flyover while coming from Banani.
"And what about me! The meter is still ticking while the taxicab is stuck in jam. Do you people think we have a moneymaking machine?" was the reply from the passenger to Manik's grumbles.
This sort of conversation is anything but rare especially during the rush hours when heavy traffic from the north, especially from Uttara, streams towards the south creating tailbacks near the flyover.
Conversely, northbound traffic remains fairly empty during the morning rush hour, only to get reversed in the evening when those commuters return from work.
"Crossing through that area has been a bane for me," said Nazmul Ahsan, a resident of Uttara, "Just the other day, it took more than two hours to reach my office in Motijheel."
To ease traffic congestion in this part of the city, construction of a new link road through Fcjgaon old airport in parallel to Rokeya Sarani will be soon underway. The road will stretch to Agargaon to connect Rokeya Sarani and Mirpur Road. It is expected to reduce pressure on ihe road between Mohakhali flyover and Farmgate, sources said.
Commuters from Mirpur, Shyamali, Kalyanpur and Mohammadpur areas will be able to save at least 20 minutes by using it to go to Mohakhali, Gulshan, Zia International Airport and Uttara, they said.