Narrow, battered and occupied pavements in the capital city continue to pester the commuters with hardly any effort by the agencies concerned to improve the situation despite repeated orders by the Supreme Court.
Except a few well-paved footpaths with good width scattered in different parts of the city, almost all the walkways are broken and occupied by hawkers or goods spilled from adjoining shops.
Many of these walkways have turned to dustbin with garbage regularly heaped on them. Many others are used as car parks.
Most pavements built along Rampura DIT Road, Shaheed Sangbadik Selina Parvin Sarak, Satmasjid Road, Mirpur Road, Shewrapara Road and Green Road, in areas such as Farmgate, Dhanmondi, Mirpur 10 and 11, Moghbazar and Karwan Bazar, along Karwan Bazar to Hatirpul Bazar and Azimpur to the Science Laboratory are either occupied or damaged or too narrow to walk.
This year the High Court came up twice with directives to free the pavements.
On February 26 it directed the home secretary, police and two city corporations to remove the illegal structures from the pavements in the area between Zero Point and Sadarghat to allow pedestrians to use them.
On March 5, the court further asked the Dhaka Metropolitan Police and two city corporations to prevent motorbike riders from riding on the footpaths.
In addition, they were also asked to remove all hoardings from the footbridges in the city and submit within a month a report on the number other details of the pavements in the capital.
‘Freeing footpaths of hawkers is a matter to be decided politically,’ said Shamsul Haque, state minister for home, who also claimed that the authorities were taking action to make the city pavements pedestrian friendly.
Inspector general of police Hassan Mahmood Khandkar said that handicapped by manpower shortages, they could not take adequate measure to keep the walkways free.
About complaints that policemen get bribes for allowing traders to occupy footpaths, he said they needed specific allegations to take action in that direction.
Referring to Section 66 of the Dhaka Metropolitan City Ordinance 1976, Save the Environment Movement secretary Syed Mahbubul Alam said, ‘This law fines Tk 100 for parking a vehicle unlawfully but the penalty is hardly imposed by the police.’
He also referred to other sections of the law that protected pedestrians’ right to safe walk but complained that the traffic authorities and others concerned hardly cared to ensure those rights.
Some experts, however, are for walkways that will provide enough room for pedestrians while facilitate the hawkers also.
Mahbubun Nabi, a professor of urban and regional planning department at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said the city pavements should have at least 12 feet breadth.
‘A pedestrian walks with an average hourly speed of four miles. No footpath in Dhaka offers the adequate room one needs to walk comfortably with that pace,’ he said.
‘In countries that take care of their commuters make wide pavements to accommodate both pedestrians and hawkers. But there hawkers are not allowed in the busiest footpaths,’ the professor added.
He further stressed that footpaths should be better paved than the roads to attract pedestrians.
‘If roads are better paved it’s natural that people will move to the road from the pavement,’ he said.
‘Ideal pavements must be built in a way in which water can easily run down from them. And here most footpaths become muddy with the slightest of rain pushing the pedestrians towards the road.’
For Syed Mahbubul Alam, the walkways overlooking the Shishu Academy are examples worthy to be followed in this regard.
‘They house a large array of pottery and handicrafts while keeping room for a comfortable walk,’ he
said.
‘It’s time to come up with plans of pavements where the pedestrians will have their easy walks and the hawkers their bit of trade.’
According to the two city corporations of Dhaka, the city has around 389 kilometres of footpaths.
-With New Age input
