(CNN) — Bangladesh launched its first metro service in the capital Dhaka on Wednesday, and officials and commuters hope it will help ease traffic in one of the world’s most densely populated and congested cities.
The largely Japanese-funded project, known as Line 6, was inaugurated in a ceremony by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who described the new railway as a “milestone,” the Dhaka Tribune reported. “Another feather added to the crown of development for Bangladesh,” she said.
She added that there would also be train carriages reserved exclusively for women and said the Dkaha metro would help reduce traffic jams in the city “significantly”.
The 20-kilometre line will serve 16 stations and connect northern Dhaka with government offices and hospitals for now, according to a statement issued by the state-owned Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL).
It will eventually expand to cross the city to the Motijheel business district in the south, he added.
Dhaka is the largest city in Bangladesh, its car-clogged roads and traffic jams a daily source of frustration for its more than 20 million residents.
Cars make their way through a traffic jam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on September 13, 2022.
(Kazi Salahuddin Razu/NURPHOTO/AP)
More than 3,000 people in Bangladesh die in traffic accidents every year, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization. in a horrible accident in 2018two students were killed by a speeding bus, drawing crowds of angry young protesters to the streets.
Experts point out that Dhaka’s infrastructure has failed to match the scale of its population. The problem is exacerbated by the country’s overreliance on cars and, so far, a lack of organized public transport, they say.
Shawana Chowdhury, an undergraduate student at the University of Bangladesh, spends hours on buses, rickshaws and cars every day. She said she was looking forward to “transforming her daily commute.”
“Technically, a lot of my life is wasted in traffic,” he told CNN. “This is a very important change for Bangladeshis. Public transport has the power to change our lives.”
The new metro line was a beacon of hope to improve the lives of Dhaka residents, he said.
“Big world cities in Singapore, Japan and France have excellent developed public transportation systems,” he said. “I hope that in time, Dhaka will see its own transformation: fewer cars and road pollution with the metro becoming the norm.”
