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COLUMN

Spinning our wheels...

SYED NASIM MANZUR
Last Thursday evening Valerio, one of our resident Italian technicians, put in his papers. His reason: the 42 km journey from his home in Gulshan to the factory where he works, in Shafipur. The journey that should take 40 minutes normally took 120 minutes and now regularly takes 180 minutes. One way. As an Italian he is no stranger to traffic jams but even for him this is too much.
Complaining about the traffic is our second favourite pastime in Dhaka but even I was struck by Valerio’s meltdown.
Beijing, choking on some of the worst traffic congestion in the world, is putting on its best face for the upcoming Olympics. It has just started the limited vehicular access policy on its roads and the results are reportedly very positive. Traffic jams and air pollution are both down although residents are hugely inconvenienced. However the Chinese government does not worry too much about public opinion.
Last month it announced investment plans of $ 28 .1 billion to improve the traffic situation but they have understood that traffic jams will not disappear with more roads. Municipal authorities realise the importance of low cost public transport providing S 360 million in subsidies alone to the subway and bus companies in Beijing. "The public transportation system is a vital part of our social welfare programme and it must con-
tinue to be such," declared Liu Qi, Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPC recently.
So transportation obviously needs to be seen beyond the need to put every one behind the wheels of a motorised transport and just build roads and flyovers. It must be about providing access for people. It has to provide multimodal access to work, education, healthcare and recreation in a safe; efficient, affordable and appropriate manner.
There is ample evidence from around the world that our love affair with the motor car is driving us fast into global gridlock. In Brazil, automobile fleets in the major cities have almost doubled since 2000 and Sao Paolo now holds the world record for the worlds worst traffic jams according to Time magazine. Arab traffic jam and road traffic accidents are costing Arab states billions of dollars annually according to Josh Martin ofThe Middle East. The Moscow Times reported the saga in April 2007 of the German businessman who arrived in Moscow from Frankfurt in 3 hours 30 minutes and then spent 8 hours trying to get to his destination from the airport. The Edington Transport Study has estimated that congestion may cost the UK economy 22 billion pounds in lost time by 2025. The Texas Transportation Institute estimated in 2000 that the 75 largest metropolitan areas experienced 3.6 billion hours of delay, resulting in 21 6 billion litres of wasted fuel and $ 67.5
billion in lost productivity, almost 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And that was when petrol was affordable.
So the lessons for Bangladesh are clear: we need to prioritise and focus on developing a sustainable, balanced and long term transportation policy if we wish to generate and sustain growth. The recent 18th JETRO survey identified hidden costs of investment as one of the factors inhibiting Japanese Foreign Direct Investment (FDD into Bangladesh.
1 believe that our uncontrolled traffic congestion, especially in Dhaka and Chittagong, is already a major cost burden on our economy. These costs include millions of man hours of lost productivity, wasted fuel burnt stuck in traffic, air and noise pollution, health costs from increased respiratory and other disorders, higher wear and tear on vehicles leading to higher imports, spillover effects onto secondary roads and neighbourhoods and increased stress and induced violence amongst road users.
Congestion costs are what economist likes to call negative externalities, which simply put means being selfish: in my decision-making 1 consider only my own costs and ignore the impacts and costs to others. So we need to find ways to internalise the negative externality through measures such as congestion fees. But we must also have options. Yesterday I tried to walk the
five blocks in Motijhecl between my meetings but there were literally no pavements to walk on. I would love to be able to bicycle the 1.5 miles from home to work but I fear for my life on the roads in a car. 1 am unlikely to risk my life on a bicycle!
During a survey conducted by Democracy watch in 2000 the number one problem identified by Dhaka residents in their daily travels was traffic jam. With reportedly 300 cars coming onto our roads every
day. Dhaka has about 7 percent roads whereas the standard globally is about 30 percent. Not surprisingly the principal focus of our policy as in most countries has been on road building but only expanding roadways tends to generate traffic and induce travel. So it is a short term fix but what is required in the long term is the work not only of transit engineers but urban planners and political leaders as well
The optimal mix of multimodal options, motor
ised versus non-motorised. selection of the right mass transit options, up gradation and reinforcement of the traffic police and laws, zoning concepts, land usage, diverting rail crossings, using rickshaws as a solution - the list of issues seems endless. But unless we start acting now. wv will never get there.
The water is the managing director of Apex Adelchi Footwear Limited and welcomes feedback at nasim@apexadelchi com