Pedestrianization in Dhaka City Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Environmental consciousness has heen the main stimulant for a new trend in transportation policy in many developed countries, where a balanced and harmonious coexistence between pedestrians and vehicles is sought. Pedestrianization, a technique recognized as the most comprehensive form of environmental traffic management, has remarkably been gaining a considerable importance in the current trend of modernization of urban activity centres. In the developing countries, pedestrian planning in general has been either totally ignored or too late in coming. In Dhaka tity, as well as in other urban areas of Bangladesh, the pedestrian traffic safety, mobility and accessibility, and the street environment have alarmingly deteriorated. Among different causes of these issues, the institutional constraints, road user behaviour and inadequacy of infrastructural facilities are the main contributory factors. The contemplated impacts on these issues by the rapid growth of the city's population, along with other future implications and constraints, were the main impetus to carry out this research. Main efforts were focussed to assess the severity of the pedestrian-vehicular conflict and the impact of the street infrastructural and environmental conditions on the quality of pedestrian movement. The main met.hodological technique of this assessment was to conduct pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow survey in two main pedestrian intensive activity areas: Mirpur Road as a major arterial street and New Market Shopping Area as one of the most important retail facility areas. The research, furthermore, investigated the pedestrian behaviour at different types of crossing facilities. Accident statistics were collected and considered a supporting evidence of the conflict intensity. Results of this research pinpointed, in facts and figures, the • '. iv severity of different dimensions of the problem and the necessity to consider changing trends and evolution of conceptual thinking in urban transportation planning. A package of recommended measures and guidelines Management) termed ETSPAM (Environmental Traffic Syst~m Planning and Is the maIn output of this research. -'!\hispackage is designed to deal with the tequlrements relevant to issues of major concern to pedestrian free movement and safety as an indispensable precondition to revItalize the urban environment in Dhaka Cit~. The main goals of the package are the attainment of safe, pleasant and efficient envIronments for pedestrian routes, and organization of pedestrian traffic as an integrated part of the city's transportatIon system. The package proposes a number of strategIes and policies, in addition to a planning framework, to Implement the selected goals and objectives. The strategies and polIcies lie in the domaIn of administrative and institutional development, expanded traffIc engineering and management, Improvements in pedestrian plannIng process, and improvements in pedestrian Infra structural facilitIes, road upgrading and public transport.