The city we live in: A death trap for passengers, passers-by

It was 9:30 in the morning. The busiest hour of the day. Masuma Jahan arrived at Jatrabari from Mirpur to see her ailing daughter who lives in South Jatrabari adjacent to a Dhaka-Chittagong highway. Seeing the condition of the road, she became perplexed.
“The bus dropped me near the park. I crossed the Jatrabari circle by
footover bridge. But now I am bewildered. I could not understand how could I go to my dear daughter’s place? “, Masuma said with a frustrating voice.
There is no footpath beside the highway to walk. The sideways of both sides are filled with filthy wastage and garbage.
The south sideway is about 4 feet lower than the highway level.
The condition of the north is more pitiful. The road is forked. The most north side of the road has developed several cracks in almost everywhere. The cracks are filled with mud and stinky water. Buses pass over these places in hellish jerk. A 2.5 feet high road island is seen on the road which runs to Chittagong bound road. It becomes difficult for women, children and aged people to use it.
As a result, they walk along the road playing gamble with life.
Masuma alleged that the highway, one of the entrances of the capital, has become death trap for the local people and the passers-by.
The highway has no zebra crossing. Pedestrians cross the road through the gap of the divider risking their life.
The Chittagong bound road remains often muddy, as there is a big fish market alongside the highway. People prefer highway or rickshaw to go to short distance to avoid the clad.
Mahmudur Rahman, a banker claimed that it created more problems at the end of the office time. “As there is no footpath, we have to hire rickshaw and even van at two times or more high rate to go to a short distance”, he said.
Amir Hossain, Commissioner of Ward no.-86 told this correspondent that he had taken measure to drain out the water of the fish market and also rain water.
In reply to another question on footpath he said that the government had planned to make it a four-lane highway. Therefore, he could not take any step to construct footpath on the road.

Courtesy of The New Nation