Widening dividers

The constriction of the available road spaces is the most likely outcome of the large-scale widening of dividers with its attendant negative implication for traffic management. For the present, what we are seeing though, is the felling of plants and small trees lining the rejected dividers. Construction materials are strewn around blocking traffic in variegated ways. To top it off, in the re-laying of the dividers, coordination is visibly lacking between different utility organisations raising the possibility of a fresh spate in road digging.

The activities are going on under the World Bank-funded Dhaka Urban Transport Project (DUTP), which the implementers say is designed to enhance the beauty of the city and reduce its traffic jams.

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The thoroughfares, dividers, islands, fountains or other embellishments to traffic intersections ought to be the enduring facets of the cityscape. But, since 1979 up until today, road dividers have undergone 21 alterations. To cite an example, only one and half years ago, Dhaka City Corporation had spent Tk 10 crore in doing up dividers along certain roads under DUTP. But the DCC's slow pace of work has led up to the same project being handled by the Roads and Highways Department who are widening the same dividers. Add to this, the number of times the roads have been dug and filled in.

Can we afford such unbridled spending of public money year after year on infrastructure which should need just maintenance and not physical alteration so frequently? If one were to say then that it's all a game of money-making would one be too wrong?

The most pertinent question is: can the broadening of road dividers be placed in an overall context of a master plan?