Van chalaks and bus bosses

Somewhere in the linguistic transfer between English and Bangla, the imported word “van” lost its original reference to a sturdy vehicle of transportation with a cab and enclosed cargo area, powered by an internal combustion engine. It also lost a lot of RPM. The Bangladesh “van” is a tricycle with a seat for the driver and a short flat bed. It’s the low-cost and low-emission utility transport found everywhere from country roads to crowded urban highways. 

You can carry almost anything on it—cattle fodder and sugar cane, sacks of rice and vegetables, a basket full of live chickens or a couple of goats, household furniture, metal pipes, bamboo scaffolding poles or your family of six. The van has no gears (and perhaps no brakes), making for tough pedaling with a heavy load on the back. Fortunately, most of Bangladesh is as flat as a pancake so the main challenges are the potholes, speed bumps, and trucks and buses that careen wildly across the road, forcing the van chalaks (drivers) onto the dirt berms.

Van chalaks in Old Dhaka

There’s an upscale motorized version of the three-wheeler van with a longer bed. Most are home-made, with a tiller engine—the kind used for irrigation pumps—adapted to provide power. These are used for transporting bricks, lumber and building materials. You can fit two cows, a stack of tires and mattresses, or a couple of beds and tables on the motor-van. Or a couple of families.

Traffic hazard—a slow-moving motorized van defies a High Court ban to transport bamboo on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway. Courtesy The Daily Star.

Any road trip in Bangladesh is a study in the social hierarchy of transportation. Next up from the motor-van is the three-wheeled auto-rickshaw, often referred to by its fuel source as a CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). It doesn’t move much faster than a motor-van, especially when it’s carrying five or six passengers, a couple of them hanging precariously out of the sides of the cab. Then there are Chinese-made pick-up trucks with narrow beds and cabs so tiny that you’d think there was a height and weight limit for drivers. The passenger cars are mostly made in India: models of Tata, Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra SUVs, and foreign brands, manufactured under license—Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Opel, Renault and others. The Indian industry also dominates the commercial vehicle market—Tata and Ashok Leyland trucks and Mahindra tractors. And finally, there’s the king—or rather tyrant—of the road, the bus. They come in many forms—from sleek, air-conditioned luxury vehicles to stifling, exhaust-belching claptraps with broken windshields, torn seats and panels and long scrape marks that would challenge the best body shop to knock into shape. The roughest-looking vehicles are often the ones with the fanciest names—the “International Super Express” and the “All the Way First Class Bus.” They all go too fast.

I can’t decide whether it’s more terrifying to watch a bus speed along, swerving wildly to avoid other vehicles, or to be a passenger in the bus itself, taking your life in your hands. I’ll assume that passengers are either inured to danger, resigned to their fate, reciting prayers or heavily sedated. The buses, some with passengers sitting on the roofs, relentlessly charge ahead, their horns blaring, with the driver’s assistant, usually a skinny teenager, hanging out of the door, waving at slower and smaller vehicles to move aside. I don’t think bus drivers are culturally more inclined to reckless maneuvers than other drivers. The problem, according to my UNICEF colleague Yasmin Khan, is that bus companies operate on low profit margins and insist their drivers make so many trips per day; knowing they will get stuck in traffic at some point, they hit the gas when traffic is moving, and other vehicles had better move aside. The brightly painted trucks join in the discordant chorus of horns—some monotone, some playing annoyingly repetitive short melodies. With almost every vehicle using its horn, it’s difficult to figure out who’s getting in the way of whom.

The government has embarked on an ambitious road-building program, widening two-lane roads into divided highways, but high population density and rapid economic growth place severe strains on the network. Several studies have shown that the road system is totally inadequate for the traffic it carries, but shortage of funds and corruption have left many major highways, especially in rural regions, in disrepair. In monsoon season, roads and bridges are washed away, and traffic faces long detours. The highways also take a heavy pounding from overloaded vehicles. Trucks are piled high with bricks, building materials and agricultural produce, lashed down with ropes; often the tailgate is left open, so that the load hangs a foot or so off the back of the bed.  When a truck is loaded high, the center of gravity shifts upward, making the vehicle liable to tip over if the driver turns sharply to avoid oncoming traffic.

The combination of fast-moving buses, trucks and cars, slow-moving bicycle and motor-vans and auto-rickshaws, and animals—goats and cattle—on two-lane roads is a recipe for accidents. Twice, the Bangladesh High Court has banned bicycle and motor-vans from national highways, while allowing them to operate on local roads. The ban has gone largely unenforced. Van drivers will not take local roads if the shortest distance between two points is on the national highway.

No one knows exactly how many vehicles are on the roads because perhaps as many as 1.5 million are not registered. In 2017, according to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), about 3.42 million vehicles were registered. The same agency reported only 1.7 million driver license holders—in other words, one for every two registered vehicles. Except among government ministers and the business elite, multi-vehicle households are rare. Adding in the number of unregistered vehicles means that almost two thirds, or more than three million, could be driven by unqualified drivers. The country has only 142 BRTA-approved driving instructors and fewer than 100 training centers, with long waits for training and licenses. Most people learn to drive from family members, friends or co-workers.

Transportation experts identify several reasons for accidents. Although some drivers are  naturally reckless or lack training, congestion can make even a good driver take unnecessary risks. Some vehicles are poorly maintained; non-technical translation—no brakes. And then there’s that distinctively Asian and African practice of setting up a market or food stall on the highway itself. Economically, it’s a smart move because the stall is in the right place to, so to speak, catch the passing traffic. Narrowing the roadway without warning, however, increases the risk of accidents. Sometimes the passing traffic catches the stall, or another vehicle.

The traffic jam that never ends

Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, like other South and Southeast Asian cities, is notorious for traffic snarls that can make even the shortest (in distance) journey frustratingly long. Traffic flow is also unpredictable; if you leave 10 minutes later than planned, what would normally be a 20-minute trip can turn into a two-hour marathon. Although the city has morning and evening rush hours, you are just as likely to be stuck in traffic at 2:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m.

According to a World Bank analysis, over the course of a decade average traffic speed dropped from 21 km (13 miles) to seven km (less than five miles) per hour, slightly above the average walking speed. Another study estimates that if vehicle growth continues at its present rate without improvements in public transport, the average speed will be down to 4.7 km (less than three miles) per hour by 2035. At that point, sensible city-dwellers would leave their cars at home and use their two feet, although that scenario seems unlikely. The World Bank estimates that traffic gridlock eats up 3.2 million work hours per day, a significant impact in an urban area that contributes more than one third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and more than 40 per cent of total employment.

The roads are filled with cars, buses, trucks, auto rickshaws, and tricycle rickshaws carrying passengers and cargo. The fastest-growing species is the motorcycle, with an average of more than one thousand new machines being registered every day. Official estimates in July 2018 put the number of motorcycles on the roads of Bangladesh at 2.27 million, but all transport experts agree that’s a gross underestimate because many owners don’t register their machines. Less than half the drivers of registered machines hold a valid license, so at least one in three should technically not be on the roads at all. Accidents are common, as riders drive on the wrong side of the highway or on sidewalks or carry more than one passenger. Transport Minister Obaidul Quader described motorcycles as “terror incarnate.” In one ten-day clampdown in August 2018, more than half of the 83,000 traffic citations handed out by police went to motorcycle riders.

There would be fewer motorcycles if Dhaka’s public transport system was more reliable. Its challenges are symbolized by the aging maroon-colored Ashok Leyland double-decker buses, operated by the government public transport agency, the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC). It is the Indian version of the Leyland Titan, developed in the UK and a common sight on British city roads until the 1970s. The last was manufactured in 1968; one year earlier, the first Titan rolled off the Ashok Leyland production line, and for many years it was a big seller in the subcontinent. Keeping the fleet on the road is a challenge; old buses go into assisted living and eventually expire in a massive yard outside Dhaka where BRTC mechanics painstakingly salvage their organs for transplant.

Many of BRTC’s single decker buses are also showing their age. Like the buses operated by private companies, they look as if they have run the traffic gauntlet, with their panels scraped and dented, their windows missing or shattered, headlamps broken, their exhausts belching smoke. To offset their appearance, many sport upbeat slogans: God Bless You with his Love, Have a Nice Tour, Super, Hi-tech Travel, Dream Line, All Way First Class, Exclusive Journey, Heppy [sic] New Year.  The government estimates that about 4,500 private buses, owned by almost 2,000 small companies, are on the road in Dhaka, competing on a maze of 165 routes. 

Many of the auto rickshaws, the CNGs, are also casualties of the daily jousts and stand-offs on city roads. Because they are smaller than buses and cars, their operators, who sometimes stretch their leg muscles by propping their feet on the handlebars while driving, believe they can squeeze into the smallest gap between larger vehicles. Passengers on the narrow bench seat—it can accommodate three or four Bangladeshis or one or two reasonably well-fed Westerners—are not protected from accidents, but at least they do not have to clutch their bags tightly while stopped in traffic; a heavy metal grille door, locked from the inside, insulates them from beggars and purse-snatchers.

The government has announced ambitious schemes to relieve the city’s traffic crisis. It plans to build five metropolitan rail lines to carry 60,000 passengers an hour and two dedicated BRTC bus routes to carry 20,000 passengers an hour. It has promised to build 750 miles of new roads, three new ring roads and six new interchanges by 2035. Passengers will be able to use smart cards on metro rail, BRTC and water taxi routes. But congestion is likely to get worse before it gets better. A new subway system, currently under construction, has led to the closure of some roads and reduced the number of lanes on others. 

“Like other cities of the developing world,” writes Jay Rosen in the New York Times, “Dhaka is both a boomtown and a necropolis, with a thriving real-estate market, a growing middle class and a lively cultural and intellectual life that is offset by rampant misery, poverty, pollution, disease and terror attacks. But it is traffic that has sealed Dhaka’s reputation among academics and development specialists as the great symbol of 21st century dysfunction, the world’s most broken city.”  

Swimming to Bangladesh

Midway through the first afternoon of the August 2017 UNICEF workshop for university faculty on communication for development, one participant rubbed his head and glanced towards the ceiling. Sure enough, a steady drip of water was coming through the acoustic tile. He shifted his chair. Soon, drips appeared in other places. People started moving tables and chairs, and a janitor placed a bucket below the leakiest spot. Then someone noticed water dripping onto the lectern and rescued the laptop. I looked up at the acoustic tiles, many of which were stained brown and black. This was evidently not the first time rain had come through the roof of the University Grants Commission building in Dhaka. No one complained or even commented. In monsoon season, you expect to get wet.  

There is flooding in Bangladesh every year, but the floods of 2017 were the worst in a decade. The first rains came in April, fully three months ahead of the normal monsoon season, inundating paddies before farmers could harvest the first of the three annual rice crops. After several weeks of rain in July and August, rivers and streams in the north burst their banks, inundating thousands of acres of farmland and washing away homes, schools, shops, vehicles and livestock. According to the government’s Meteorological Department, on a single day, August 11, almost a week's worth of average monsoon rainfall was dumped across parts of the country in the space of a few hours. By the time the rains eased, and the floodwaters began to recede, almost 150 people had lost their lives, 700,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed and up to a third of agricultural land submerged. The waters destroyed rice crops and washed out the fish ponds that provide the main source of protein for the rural population. More than eight million people sought shelter on higher ground or on narrow levees, erecting flimsy shelters of bamboo poles and tarpaulins, without food, clothes, clean water or sanitation facilities. 

"People are used to seasonal flooding but nothing to this degree,” Corinne Ambler of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) told CNN. “This is a different level—for miles around all you can see is water, the flooding has transformed the countryside. People were fearful they would soon begin to starve." By the third week in August, most vegetable prices had shot up by at least 50 per cent, with the price of onions and chili—essential ingredients in many dishes—doubling. The flooding was the most serious since 2007 when more than half the country was affected and more than 1,000 people, most of them children, died. In August 2017, across India, Nepal and Bangladesh, more than 1,200 people died from flooding and landslides and 40 million were affected.

For the Bangladesh government, NGOs and international relief organizations, providing clean water and sanitation were the major priorities. Floodwaters provide breeding grounds for water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, malaria, dengue and Japanese encephalitis. Reaching stranded communities was challenging because the floods washed away roads, bridges and railroads. A newspaper front page photo showed a woman walking along the buckled tracks of a railroad in a badly-hit region of the northwest. The force of the waters had washed away the track bed, and submerged the tracks for three days, leaving them looking “like those of a roller-coaster.”

The Dhaka-Dinajpur line at Kauguan in August 2017 after flood waters washed away the track bed. Courtesy The Daily Star.

Dhaka escaped the worst of the flooding, although rising water in streams and lakes washed away banks and inundated the rough shacks and market stalls where poor families, many of them migrants from rural areas, eke out a living as bicycle rickshaw drivers and roadside vendors. Roads in low-lying areas were under knee-to-waist high water. Urban planners blamed the waterlogging on inadequate drainage and pumping systems and accused government officials and contractors of corruption, shoddy construction and poor maintenance. Over the years, private developers have filled in sections of the canals and rivers that serve as the city’s main drainage channels. Culverts that feed into the waterways are often clogged with garbage and building materials.

The morning after the laptop rescue the rains came again, heavier than the day before. In the lobby of the Ascott Palace Hotel, my colleagues and I waited for the hotel van, wondering how we would reach it without being soaked to the skin. For the staff, it was a familiar challenge. At the entrance, a canopy extended several feet into the street. The van drew up and a guard held up a brightly colored umbrella, almost four feet in diameter, to cover the three steps from the canopy to the door, while still remembering to give us the customary salute. 

Three days of monsoon rains in July 2017 left many roads in Dhaka under water. Courtesy The Daily Star.

Most travelers were not so lucky. Bicycle and bicycle rickshaw drivers pedaled unsteadily through the torrent, one hand on the handlebars and the other clutching an umbrella. Cars sped by, their tires splashing them; one poor cyclist got a double whammy when cars passed him simultaneously on both sides. Auto-rickshaws—the so-called CNGs, powered by compressed natural gas—stalled out, forcing their drivers to push them to the roadside. Street cleaners and construction workers, carrying bricks in baskets on their heads, had no protection from the downpour.

Rickshaws and vans push through the water in Chittagong after six hours of heavy rain in April 2017 left many areas of the port city flooded. Courtesy The Daily Star.

Most workshop participants showed up late that morning. One said it had taken him 2 ½ hours to make a five-mile trip across the city, but he was nonplussed; he was from Chittagong, where flooding is usually much worse than in Dhaka. On a previous visit in April my UNICEF colleague Yasmin Khan had translated a newspaper cartoon. It depicted the portly, bespectacled mayor of Chittagong, happily floating on an inner tube, while his constituents struggled through the flood waters. The caption read: “Mayors come and go but citizens continue to suffer.”