Traffic jam at Bahaddarhat

Traffic tailback at Bahadderhat intersection. Photo: Star

Road systems in a city operate like blood vessels. When the formation of bad cholesterol puffs up arteries and veins, the passage for the blood flow gets narrowed down and the liquid traffic to and from the heart is blocked. In the road map the increased volume of traffic may be considered as the bad cholesterol, which creates frequent bottlenecks all over the city.

The Bahaddarhat intersection has proved to be the biggest bottleneck in the city. It is a source of great frustration for all kinds of vehicles and passengers, because passage through it is sometimes delayed by two hours at a time.

Twenty minutes to half an hour jam is almost a routine at Bahaddarhat at any time of the day. The residents of Chandgaon, Bahaddarhat, Bakalia and Farider Para are the unfortunate victims of this jam. Bahaddarhat provides the only passage for them to connect with the city to the west.

And they fret, and out of frustration they are now learning to devise their work routine in such a way so as to avoid the high rush. So a mother will be seen taking her son to school almost at dawn just to be in time, whereas the child's school does not start before eight in the morning. Like the mother every resident in the vicinity of Bahaddarhat is making some kind of sacrifice everyday.

Though the jam is to be seen at any time of the day, it becomes most acute in the afternoon and evening when buses, maxis, tempos, taxis and cars carry homebound passengers returning from work, and when lorries and trucks and buses from the opposite end try to enter the city for the night.

The residents of the aforesaid areas do also contribute to the jam as they come out in their respective vehicles to join weddings and parties at several city centres in the evening.

This jamming of the traffic at Bahaddarhat has been prevailing since long, since, as it is said in the Bible, the year before the flood. But nowhere does anybody seem to give a fig about it. Is it the traffic authority, the City Corporation, the CDA, the Roads and Highways, the Ministry of Communications, or the newspaper that one should go to complain?

Whoever is the direct authority, the solution of the problem seems to be simpler than it looks. Enough land on both sides of the carpeted old road is left unused obviously as part of the widening plan of the road in future.

So the two-lane road that has started from Barek Building about ten kilometers north and has inexplicably stopped at Bahaddarhat should now be extended further down to the south up to Kalurghat. That is, the old road from Bahaddarhat to Kalurghat should be built two-lane, and that will largely solve the problem.

And a strong authority should discipline the Bahaddarhat Bus Terminal, which is responsible for causing all the jam.

And, all the authorities concerned should coordinate to remove the bottleneck at Bahaddarhat.