The cost of gridlocks

It is raining heavily in the morning. The very beginning of the day seems to be so soothing as petrichor emanating from the soil and the dulcet sound of the raindrops are placating your mind. On your way to the office, you are trying hard to enjoy monsoon rain sitting inside a car. From the other part of the tinted glass of the car, you feel like drenching yourself. But you are not stepping out to live out any of these fantasies owing to the fact that you are feeling disoriented and extremely vexed after remaining stuck in the long tailbacks caused by abrupt raining for almost two hours. On the other side of the road, someone is getting wet as he is trying to travel by holding on to the handholds outside the bus. For him, getting wet in the rain is no romantic thing. Now, look at the contrasting realities – the first person wants to get drenched in the rain, but his enthusiasm petered out. And the second person cannot even give it a thought because the only thing making rounds in his head right now is - he is already one hour late for his office. This narrative is so common when it rains in our capital as any monsoon shower aggravates traffic situation in the city so badly that the suffering of the commuters knows no bounds.

The narrative points to a fact – traffic in our capital knows no class. It makes someone belonging to the high echelon of the society as well as someone from the lowest rung of the social ladder suffer equally. Traffic congestion is an everyday affair in our capital. Denizens and commuters living in the capital know it for sure that traffic congestion, no matter what the authorities concerned do, is here to stay and in fact, city dwellers are now habituated to the traffic trends. Even if you are accustomed to such practice now, it does not change the fact that traffic congestion is affecting our lives in many ways, including the economic loss associated with it.

First, the country is incurring a colossal economic loss due to traffic congestion in the capital. According to information provided by Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the estimated amount of economic loss due to traffic gridlocks is around Tk 560 billion annually, which is not a pittance at all. Moreover, the study conducted by ARI also claimed that an additional 40 per cent fuel is burned during gridlocks, which amounts to an economic value of Tk 42 million. Bangladesh is counting such a huge economic loss because of mismanagement of traffic.

Meanwhile, in a study conducted in 2016 by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development titled “Urban Situation-2018: Traffic congestion in Dhaka metropolis, from the perspective of governance system”, the 26.5-km-long Airport-Postogola road was taken as a specimen to measure the financial loss resulted in by traffic congestion. The findings claimed that the speed limit of vehicles on this route gets reduced due to heavy flow of vehicles. The time wasted by a passenger on each journey due to reduced speed was calculated to be worth Tk. 53 (approximately) per day. Besides, the financial value and fuel cost of the time lost in the traffic jam stood at Tk 227 crore per month.

Traffic tailbacks are actually hamstringing our work efficiency. According to the same study, commuters squander around 19 million working hours per day. It does not mean that a good portion of their working hours just gets wasted, rather it is also true the time we spend being stuck in the gridlocks actually takes a heavy toll on our mental health, which consequently affects the level of our efficiency. Let me put it in plain words – when we get stuck in the traffic in the very morning, it actually breaks our concentration and some of us even lose the interest of attending the office after long hours of congestion. Even when office-goers make it to the office, they cannot give it their best as they feel disoriented and some of them even get headaches even before commencing office works.

Long hours of traffic congestion hamper our mental peace. The very first thing we consider while going out in the capital is the traffic condition. This has been so terrifying that many families have even stopped going out on weekends to pass quality time. City dwellers now feel that the less you go out, the more you feel mentally sound. Traffic congestion is killing us silently in this way. Even when commuters remain stuck in the traffic for long hours, they feel displeased after making their way back home, which often robs them of the mental stability necessary to behave well with the family members and kids. Moreover, the very thought of the same struggle and the repetition of the same maddening experience the next day makes us a bit offhand.

Interestingly, we have grown up hearing the adage that ‘time is money’. For common commuters living in the capital, this saying bears no significance. Because for them, time seems to be a tricky and expensive thing. Just imagine – this is a city where commuters have to pay for wasting time on the roads. When someone gets stuck in the traffic, it is the commuters and passengers who have to pay extra to the drivers. If you are using an Uber vehicle or a CNG, you have to count extra penny for every second you remain stuck in the congestion. What an irony! It is the commuters who are getting late and feeling irritated, but it is also them who have to pay for such revulsive experience!

The writer is a freelance columnist