DHAKA’S declining traffic situation and poor air quality have made it one of the worst cities to live in. A recent Centre for Policy Dialogue survey finds an even grimmer reality for its citizens. The survey, ‘Green Cities Initiatives’ conducted on 500 households in the capital, says that residents lose at least 276 productive hours a year being stuck in traffic congestion. In 2017, a World Bank report also said that people lost 3.2 million productive hours a day in Dhaka because of traffic congestion. The average traffic speed that time was 7km/hour, only slightly above the average walking speed. Meanwhile, plans for the construction of flyovers, foot bridges and road maintenance work continue without considering the possible impact on traffic movement. The fears that the much-celebrated Dhaka Elevated Expressway is not going to significantly improve the traffic situation corroborate this point. Experts express concern that traffic congestion would increase at entry and exit points of ramps and that manual toll collection would slow down vehicles, causing congestion. The Moghbazar flyover has also failed to effectively work as it fails to make any difference during peak hours. An unplanned roadside parking of inter-district buses or modified utility vehicles further contributes to the declining traffic situation.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue also reports that the city took 2,117 days off work and school in 2022 and residents spend on an average Tk 4,000 every year on treatment in medical conditions caused by air pollution. The findings do not come as a surprise as many other recent studies have come up with similar findings. The Global Liveability Index 2023 of the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Dhaka as the seventh least liveable city for the second consecutive year. On August 26, with an air quality index score of 109, Dhaka ranked the fourth on the list of cities in terms of air quality. A higher incidence of respiratory diseases among Dhaka residents is a direct manifestation of the poor air quality. The main contributing factors of air pollution — a massive discharge of pollutant particles from brick kilns, construction work and expired, run-down vehicles — are public knowledge, but no effective measure is there. The government has also failed to keep the public informed of their role in preventing air pollution. The study shows that at least 43 per cent of respondents acknowledged a tendency to discard wastes directly onto the street while around 79 per cent said that they did not separate their household plastic wastes.

It is high time that the government, especially city authorities, took the issue of traffic situation and air pollution seriously and committed to making Dhaka liveable. It must not take up road infrastructure projects without assessing their impact on traffic movement. It must implement a time-bound air pollution mitigation plan for Dhaka that would effectively shut down environmentally hazardous brick kilns, ban black smoke-emitting expired vehicles and reduce dust from construction work.