Change to create more chaos

The extended Moghbazar-Mouchak Flyover ramp near Sonargaon Hotel may make the already crammed street even more congested, according to an expert and project officials.

Moreover, a 50-metre carriageway deck of the ramp, built in front of the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (popularly known as the FDC) at a cost of around Tk 9.5 crore, would now have to be demolished, said a project official.

Construction work to extend the ramp by 450 metres towards the hotel at a cost of Tk 85 crore was underway. The ramp cannot be extended beyond the Sonargaon Hotel intersection, as it would conflict with the proposed Metro Rail, said the flyover project director.  

Insiders say that a traffic survey conducted in April this year found that more than 1,600 vehicles use the street in front of the hotel every hour during the rush hours mostly to go towards Panthapath, Bangla Motor and Farmgate.

Just 166 vehicles, of the around 1,800 vehicles that take the flyover facility from Holy Family Hospital direction every hour in the rush hours, intend to turn left towards Sonargaon intersection and would be benefited by the extension.

As there is no ramp connecting Hatirjheel road network to the flyover, the entire bulk of the traffic from Gulshan, Badda and Rampura has to wait at the FDC level crossing for passage, said Prof Shamsul Hoque, who works as a technical expert on Strategic Transport Plan of Dhaka.

The extended ramp is going to occupy a standard six-metre width of the existing roadway, he said, adding that another down ramp of the under construction Dhaka Elevated Expressway is designed to merge with the same road in front of the BGMEA building, which would add further traffic to the already crammed spot.

Besides, a left lane of the street is always exclusively dedicated for the unobstructed entry to the Sonargaon Hotel, he observed. As a result, a high number of vehicles using the existing street will face more constraints with the road width squeezed.

As there is no up-ramp there either, traffic from the other direction will also cram the street, he noted.

The extended ramp does not help a huge volume of traffic with elevated passage over the level crossing due to the lack of an up-ramp connecting the Hatirjheel road network, said Prof Hoque. “So, it is not going to meet the great expectation of easing traffic congestion at the BFDC railway crossing and Sonargaon intersection.”

That the ramp cannot be extended beyond the Sonargaon intersection is because such mega projects were not coordinated with each other at the outset, he observed.

He said even though the proposal for extending the ramp was from honest intentions, it was not going to achieve the desired goal due to the faulty layout configuration on which the flyover has been built.

Flyover Project Director Nazmul Alam said the extended ramp would not serve a big chunk of traffic volume on the existing street from Hatirjheel and the traffic heading for Panthapath would have to face the usual barrier at the FDC level crossing.

He said they would open another two-kilometre section of the flyover from Bangla Motor to Mouchak by July and the rest of the flyover by mid-next year, the official deadline.

A two-kilometre four-lane carriageway section of the flyover stretching from Saat Rasta intersection (Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Avenue) up to Shaheed Captain Mansur Ali Avenue (Moghbazar) near Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital was opened in late March.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) in January approved the revised Moghbazar-Mouchak Flyover Project extending its deadline by 18 months to June, 2017. The cost has increased more than Tk 446 crore, raising the total project cost to Tk 1,219 crore.

Including the extension, the 8.7km flyover is being constructed in three sections -- one from Holy Family Hospital to Tejgaon, one from Kakrail to Rampura and the rest from Mouchak to Bangla Motor.

The Ecnec first approved the project in March, 2011, when the cost was Tk 773 crore.

Initially, it was supposed to be completed in two years from contract signing in late 2012. A total of 18 ramps, including eight for ascending, were planned to land at Saat Rasta, Pragati Sarani and FDC intersections, near Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital at Eskaton Garden, Moghbazar, Rajarbagh and Shanti Nagar.