Abandoned flyover project structures add to Gulistan woe

Heaped in the middle on a busy Gulistan road, the dismantled structures of the ditched Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover project only add to the everyday traffic woes in the bustling Gulistan-Fulbaria area.

Buses and rickshaws routinely jostle to make way through the 150-metre squeezed stretch on both sides of the road.

The situation reaches dizzy heights during rush hours.

Construction materials piled or not, Gulistan and Fulbaria areas are riddled with traffic more often than not on any given day as most buses taking the roads there use the Golap Shah Mazar point and the stretch between the south gate of Baitul Mokarram Mosque and Gulistan underpass for stop.

Traffic police say they are helpless. "Buses are coming and going all day long, taking and dropping passengers on the roads here," said a traffic sergeant wishing anonymity.

He said bus-parking bays are necessary, even if it means dismantling portions of markets, to ease the traffic congestion.

"It pretty much takes half an hour during rush hours to get through from Rajuk Bhaban to Zero Point," said bus driver Mohammad Alam, who regularly takes the Mirpur-Motijheel route via Gulistan.

As is ubiquitous elsewhere in the capital, footpaths and part of the roads in the areas are occupied by hawkers, pushing people farther onto the roads.

Traffic sergeants were seen pushing people aside so that drivers can stop their buses at kerb between Baitul Mokarram south gate and Gulistan underpass.

Fruit vendors, imitation jewellery hawkers and a few others with sugarcane crushers and weight scales were seen occupying the road on the western side of Sergeant Ahad Police Box on Wednesday afternoon.

"When police come, we run away; when they leave, we come back," quipped jewellery hawker Mohammad Zahid.

Cars were seen parked on the road by the Ramna Bhaban. People were pushing and shoving to make way through a tangle of rickshaws and motorised vehicles as hawkers squatted the footpath.

Traffic jam will ease to some extent once debris from the dismantled structures of the flyover project and construction materials heaped on south side of Gulistan Park are cleared and taken away, said Fakruzzaman, assistant commissioner (traffic) of Motijheel Zone of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

A staffer of the firm, Belhasa Accom JV and Associates, said they need three to four more days to take away their equipment.

But, this alone is not going to ease the traffic snarl there.