Who is to blame for Dhaka being the world’s slowest city?

Although it may sound very unpleasant, Dhaka, the bustling capital of Bangladesh, has been ranked as the first slowest among 1,200 cities in 152 countries in the world.

Apart from the capital, two other cities — Mymensingh and Chattogram – have also been leveled as the 9th and 12th respectively on the list of the slowest cities, shows a study.

The new study, published as a working paper by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research titled “The fast, the slow, and the congested: urban transportation in rich and poor countries” has revealed this after analysing traffic over the global cities with populations over 300,000.

Two Nigerian cities — Lagos and Ikordu — ranked second and third on the list, followed by Manila, the capital of the Philippines, Biwandi, a town in India, and Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.

Besides, India with eight in total, are also on the top of slowest cities in the world, the study reportedly used data from Google Maps.

According to Google Maps, a 9-km trip from Dhaka airport to Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed Park, in Gulshan-2, can take as long as 55 minutes, whereas a trip of the same distance in Flint, Michigan, the world’s fastest city, from the airport to the Sloan Museum of Discovery, takes about only nine minutes, writes Time magazine in its report published on this particular study.

As per the study report, 19 of the top 20 fastest cities are in the United States.

However, researchers say, the speed of travel in a city is not only related to the amount of traffic on its roads, but other factors, such as the layout and quality of a city’s roads play a significant role in how fast vehicles can drive.

The stigma that Dhaka’s traffic system is going to be worse can be reduced by 40 per cent just by improving the management of traffic and public consciousness.

Different studies have shown that around 5 million vehicles, including the 3.1 million registered, are currently plying the roads; of them, 72 per cent lack fitness clearance.

But importantly, all moves by authorities to ease traffic in the capital might prove insufficient unless we decentralise Dhaka.

The city is already overpopulated and its infrastructure doesn’t match the ever increasing scale of its population.

We also need to relocate our industries, particularly the readymade garments, tanneries, and some government establishments to other areas from capital Dhaka to ease traffic congestion.