Thousands of cheering enthusiastic travelers expressed rejoice as they waited and finally crossed the dream Padma Bridge on Sunday. Many of the travelers waited long hours of ten to 15 hours before paying toll and riding on the bridge.
“It’s real, not dream any more,” cried out a motorcycle rider from Patuakhali as he raced towards the bridge after paying the toll. Thousands of such cheerful and thrilled travelers expressed their moments of delight while crossing the bridge on Sunday.
Many of them expressed various causes of being exited with happiness. At first, they were happy as they could cross the Padma River through the country’s biggest ever bridge, which was inaugurated on Saturday and opened for the vehicular movement on Sunday.
The second reason was that they could cross the River Padma without facing any kind of hassle and hurdle as they earlier had to face while crossing the river. The third reason was that they could cross the river only in six to eight minutes, whereas earlier travelers would have to wait at least two to four hours to cross the river.
An orthopedic doctor of a public medical college hospital, Rafiqul Islam, who is a resident of Tekerhat in Madaripur district, said that he can now reach Dhaka in just one and a half hours from Tekerhat. Such convenience was the result of constructing the bridge.
“There was no hassle of crossing the river by passenger vessel, ferry or speedboat. We just boarded on a bus at 7:30 am and reached Dhaka at around 9:00am,” said an excited happy face of Dr Rafiqul Islam.
Like Dr Rafiqul Islam, many others who crossed the Padma Bridge, also expressed similar experiences of the pleasure of conveniences of traveling in such a short period of time.
Witnesses said that the bridge was opened for vehicular movement at 6:00am in the morning Sunday. But, hundreds of vehicles like bus, truck, private car, microbus, motorbike and other road transports remained waiting before 6:00 am at all the three ends of the bride at Jajira in Shariyatpur, Kanthalbari in Madaripur and Mawa in Munsiganj.
Many of the people just crossed the bridge to enjoy the excitement of crossing the river through the bridge on the first day of its opening.
According to sources, more than 15,200 vehicles cross the Padma Bridge in first eight hours since morning on Sunday while Tk 82,19,050 was collected as tolls.
Abul Hossain, a Supervising Engineer of Bangladesh Bridge Authority, on Sunday afternoon said that 60 percent of the vehicles of those vehicles were motorcycles.