Environmental Impact Assessment of Introducing Light Rail Transit in Dhaka City

Abstract

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is a large city, which is going to be one of the mega cities of the world within the early next century. Among other problems of a mega city, Dhaka is being faced with the environmental degradation of the city. The population of Dhaka has increased substantially since the independence of the country and eventually the number of motorized transport has increased to meet the increasing demand of the city dwellers. The harmful gases emitted from these vehicles are polluting the air of the city and has put the health of the city dwellers in danger. Besides this, accident rate has increased and traffic congestion has become a regular phenomena. To cope with this problems an alternative transportation system has become imperative which will be environment friendly and have the potential to meet the demand of the city. Light Rail Transit, which is a modem version of the traditional tramway, can be a probable solution to this problem. This study was designed to find out the environmental impact of the introduction of Light Rail Transit in Dhaka city. [n doing this relevant literature have been reviewed. A route for LRT has been proposed and data collected through sample survey. However the feasibility to establish a track for LRT was not carried out purposely as that was out of the scope of the study. Through the study, it appears that because of the introduction of Light Rail Transit, a substantial number of people will be diverted to LRT from other modes of transport and as a result emission ofharn1ful gases like SO" NO, and CO will be reduced by about 40%.