Sustainable Transportation Systems for Dhaka Metropolitan City: Issues and Opportunities

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with more than 15 million people within its area of 360 square km, has emerged as one of the most congested, unsafe, and polluted cities in the world today. The capital city relies on its road based transportation system. However, the roads of Dhaka are not well planned, designed, and operated to meet the dwellers mobility and accessibility needs. A major portion of Dhaka's some 1868 km of roadways has no sidewalks and where the sidewalks do exist, they are very narrow, poorly maintained, and disjointed or broken. Buses are the only form of mass transit mode in Dhaka, and bus operators are mostly privately owned fragmented and unorganized companies. They provide substantially inadequate and very poor quality of bus service. For its very existence as a mega-city, Dhaka needs to develop a healthy transportation system to support its existing population as well as to maintain a sustained growth. Given the status-quo, this paper addresses six critical issues (e.g., transportation infrastructure and pedestrian, public transportation, growth management and control, education and research, governance and institutions, and funding and financing), and needs in light of developing sustainable transportation systems for Dhaka metropolitan city.