Aiming at ensuring a hassle-free and smooth Eid journey the government opened a total of seven flyovers to traffic under the Bus Rapid Transit on Dhaka-Gazipur route on Sunday.
Eid-ul-Fitr, the second biggest religious festival of the Bangalee Muslims, is only a couple of weeks away. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country visit their near and dear ones leaving their work places during the Eid festival.
Out of the seven flyovers, 323-metre long Airport Flyover (Left and right Sides), 180-metre Jasimuddin Flyover, 165-metre
U-Turn-1 Gazipura Flyover, 165-metre U-Turn-2 Open University Flyover, 240-metre Gazipur Bhogra Flyover and 568-metre long Gazipur Chowrasta Flyover, were opened following 12-year long construction work.
Locals hope that the move will help addressing a nagging congestion on various routes, including the Dhaka-Mymensingh route that usually gets clogged almost every day.
Mainly due to the prolonged construction work of these flyovers and of road expansion, commuters and travellers on the route have been suffering a lot as severe gridlock occurs even at midnight, locals said.
Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader opened the flyovers through a videoconferencing from his office at Bangladesh Secretariat.
“These flyovers are not inaugurated officially, rather those are opened to traffic. The opening of the flyovers will make travelling easier and give relief to the home-bound passengers of greater Mymensingh area. Passengers will not suffer this time at Gazipur,” he said.
“With the opening of these seven flyovers ahead of Eid, we are offering a gift to the home-bound passengers from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” he added.
Acknowledging people’s suffering for several years, the minister said that some 91 percent work of the project, beginning in 2012, had already been completed so far.
“Buses under the BRT project will start plying the route by December this year,” he said hoping that the completion of the 20.5km whole project would take time up to June this year.
The Roads and Highways Department is tasked with constructing a 16km road, including seven flyovers, while the Bangladesh Bridge Authority is constructing a 4.5 km flyover under the project.
A portion of the BRT project — the Dhaka-bound two lanes of the flyover from Tongi Fire Service in Gazipur to Uttara House Building — was opened to traffic on 6 November 2022.
The construction work of the 4.5km flyover from Uttara House Building to Tongi Cherag Ali Market is going on.
Besides, the project has 113 connecting roads, 25 BRT stations, and two bus terminals at the Dhaka Airport and at Shibbari in Gazipur.
It also includes construction of 30 underpasses for entering and exiting the bus stops and pedestrian crossings, 41km of high capacity drains on both sides of the new road alongside 20.5km footpaths.
After the Asian Development Bank’s preliminary feasibility study in 2011, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the BRT project on December 1 in 2012.
The project with an estimated cost of around Tk 20.4 billion was initially slated for completion in December 2016.
However, the project saw extensions for several times and budget adjustments, leading to a final cost of over Tk 42.68 billion.
The BRT project aims to alleviate traffic congestion on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, allowing 25,000 passengers to travel through 100 articulated buses per hour.
Construction work has involved three Chinese firms - China Gezhouba Group Corporation, Jiangsu Provincial Transportation Engineering Group, and Weihai International Economic and Technical Cooperative - alongside the local Cell-UDC company, responsible for building the BRT depot in Gazipur.