Metro magic is here, now
If there was no Covid, Dhaka Metro could have been one of the fast completed metros in Asia as it was programmed to be unveiled on the Victory Day last year. Now, it is off to a glorious start today in the month of victory in our War of Liberation 51 years ago, heralding a modern transportation network aspired by many cities but realised by few. Still, Bangladesh is going to be the third country in South Asia to operate metro rail service although being a late starter in the expensive and complicated venture compared to India which got its first metro commissioned in 1984 in Kolkata. Pakistan started its first metro in Lahore just two years ago.
The partial operation of the above-ground metro, also known as elevated metro railway, taking place six months after the country's pride Padma Bridge opening, marks the beginning of the country's first electric-powered, eco-friendly rail.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the Metro Rail this morning at Uttara's Sector 15.
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The 11km Uttara-Agargaon metro rail, just green-lighted for traffic, is a part of MRT-6, which is one of the six routes to crisscross the capital city and its neighbourhood. When completed in full, the 22km Metro-6 will extend to Kamalapur railway station through the Dhaka University campus onwards to the Motijheel commercial district.
The metro rail route from Agargaon to Motijheel will be completed within December 2023 and the part from Motijheel to Kamalapur by 2025, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said on Tuesday.
The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) network of about 129 kilometres – 61km being underground – are expected to provide relief to city commuters often stuck in Dhaka's notorious traffic that slows vehicles to as low as 4.5kmph, meaning that vehicles on Dhaka city roads move at an average speed lower than normal walking although the government spent Tk28,000 crore for road infrastructure in the last decade.
Average motor vehicle speed in the city was 21 kilometres per hour 12 years ago, according to a study of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology two years back that hoped this decade would start getting dividends from the ongoing city transport infrastructure projects like the metro rail and the elevated expressway.
The much anticipated Tk33,472 crore metro rail, though only a part of the whole blueprint, will be the beginning of an integrated urban transport network, suiting the fast-spawning capital city of a country aspiring to be a high-income economy in less than 10 years from now.
Metro around the world
Though started as an underground tunnel in London 160 years ago, metro rail now runs both under and over ground in more than 190 cities. Whatever they are called – subway, tube, light train, underground or simply metro – the commuters in global cities with metro rail systems are benefiting in terms of travel time that would have otherwise cost them hours of every workday. The system is hailed as one of the fastest, hassle-free and, at the same time, green transportation systems.
This is why more and more cities are planning to have metro rail as an integral part of their mass rapid urban transit service.
In nearly four decades since its first metro rail was commissioned, India now has metro rail networks in 15 cities with the Delhi Metro being rated among the world's best-serving ones.
The first Indian city to get a metro, Kolkata, is now waiting for a river crossing metro rail next year – like the Eurostar that joins London and Paris.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's Lahore launched the country's first and lone metro rail in 2020. The Orange Line, as the Lahore metro is named, carries an average of 1,20,000 people every day through its 27km route touching 26 stations.
The number of daily travellers is expected to rise to a quarter of a million once the system is fully operating.
The China-built driverless modern transport service drastically cut travel time in Lahore – from two-and-a-half-hour travel by bus to just 45 minutes' comfortable journey by metro.
Who are benefiting most from Pakistan's $1.8 billion project that opened after years of delays and political controversies?
Who gets to gain most from metro service?
It is the middle-class people in Lahore, contrary to the popular belief here among Dhaka people that a visibly higher fare would drive away average commuters and benefit only the car-owners or others who can afford Uber or CNG-run autos.
One year into service, Pakistani media quoted a working woman in Lahore saying her commuting expenses dropped to a third – from Rs35,000 a month to Rs10,000 – though she needs to take multiple trips by metro every day.
Mehak Idrees, the woman, happily narrates how the metro trip helps her reach office in time and back home to kids earlier and make her journey hassle-free. A schoolboy Hannan says he can sleep longer in the morning as the metro saves his travel time and has made his trip to school hassle-free.
When MRT-6 is fully operational up to Kamalapur, it is expected to carry 60,000 passengers every hour and working women, students, office-goers, businesspeople and executives must be among those.
Even if the Tk60 fare for a 20-minute 11km ride in an AC compartment seems higher than a bus fare, it is still a tenth of the cost charged by Uber or a fifth of what is charged by an auto-rickshaw. Forget about the hazards of getting into a ramshackle city bus and spending hours on the road in sun, rain and cold.
Though later than Delhi, Kolkata and Lahore, Dhaka commuters are having the comfort of a modern clean transport system ahead of those in Ho Chi Minh City that started metro work earlier than Dhaka but could not yet complete, and also those in Colombo that shelved a Jica-backed light train project.
