October 29, 2025
DHAKA – On the morning of July 29, 2018, a speeding Jabale Noor Paribahan bus, racing recklessly to overtake another on Airport Road, veered off course and ploughed into a group of students waiting on the pavement. Rajib and Dia, students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College, were killed instantly. The bus had no route permit. The driver had no valid licence. The incident should have sparked resignations. Instead, it sparked a movement.
A movement that shook the nation
In the days that followed, something extraordinary happened: thousands of students, many wearing school uniforms, took to the streets. But they didn’t block roads with violence. They organised traffic. They checked driving licences. They painted zebra crossings. They demanded nirapod shorok — safe roads. And in doing so, they revealed something deeper: the complete absence of a functioning state in one of the most basic arenas of governance.
The Nirapod Shorok Andolon — or Safe Roads Movement — became a civic moment that captured national attention. For a brief period, it seemed as though a long-neglected issue had finally reached its tipping point. Then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised reforms. Officials held emergency meetings. And yet, six years later, nothing has fundamentally changed.
A daily crisis
Our urban roads remain among the most dangerous and dysfunctional in the world. The same unfit buses, the same lawless intersections, the same underpaid and undertrained drivers are still part of daily life. The students who once stopped traffic to restore order have grown up and even overthrown a 15-year-old regime in 2024, but the conditions that spurred them to protest in 2018 remain — if not worse, then more entrenched.
For many in Dhaka, commuting is an ordeal that consumes hours each day. A journey of eight kilometres can take 90 minutes. Parents routinely spend more time on school runs than with their children. Office workers leave at dawn to beat the traffic and return home after dark. The emotional cost is high: everyday life is characterised by fatigue, annoyance, and a sense of helplessness. While rickshaw-pullers risk their lives weaving between buses in order to earn their daily rent, ambulances get stuck in traffic with sirens blaring into apathy.
The economic costs are enormous. According to a study by the BUET Accident Research Institute, congestion in Dhaka causes an estimated loss of over $3 billion annually in lost productivity, fuel, and environmental damage — nearly 1% of Bangladesh’s GDP, more than the government spends on the entire health sector. In other words, the price of sitting in traffic exceeds what we invest in keeping our citizens alive and healthy.
Fragmented institutions
Dhaka’s traffic nightmare is not simply a matter of too many cars or too few roads. It is the symptom of a deeper breakdown in our institutions. The daily chaos reflects a state where agencies work in isolation, laws are enforced only when convenient, and the public good is routinely pushed aside to serve political interests.
At the heart of the problem is what many experts call a “governance breakdown.” Three major actors dominate the urban transport ecosystem: the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), which manages traffic enforcement; the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), meant to plan and coordinate public transport; and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), responsible for licensing and vehicle fitness. In theory, they should work together. In practice, they simply don’t. And the consequences are lethal.
The DMP attempts to manage traffic with little coordination from city planners or any other departments. Overwhelmed and under-resourced, the BRTA operates like a paper-pushing bureaucracy. DTCA, despite being the coordinating body, is often sidelined — lacking both authority and capacity. The result is fragmentation: one agency changes a road’s direction; another still issues permits based on the old layout. No one is held accountable when things go wrong.
Why attempts to reform consistently fail
This dysfunction explains why even well-intentioned interventions, such as attempts to rationalise bus routes, have failed time and time again in Dhaka. The Bus Route Rationalisation (BRR) plan, which was later renamed Dhaka Nagar Paribahan, was first piloted in December 2021 with the goal of bringing disparate operators together under a franchise-based, colour-coded system. The simple but ambitious goals were to reduce overlapping routes, improve service discipline, and give commuters predictability. However, the initiative was swiftly stalled by opposition from influential transport owners. This year the government is once again trying to revive BRR under a new “cluster” model, but early signs suggest the same old problems: political resistance, poor coordination, and lack of enforcement plans.
The earlier plan had support from planners, donors, and segments of government. But it stalled because it required entrenched transport owners — many politically connected — to surrender individual control in favour of centralisation. They refused, and the state blinked. The chaos remained.
Normalisation of dysfunction
Despite its staggering costs, there is a dangerous normalisation of dysfunction — a resigned belief that this is simply the price of living in a “growing megacity.” But that logic is false. Other dense cities have shown otherwise. Singapore, Bogotá, and even Kigali have built orderly, people-centred transport systems despite resource constraints. The difference lies not in geography or money, but in political will and accountability.
The real issue is not a lack of knowledge. Countless reports — from the World Bank, ADB, BUET, and local transport researchers — have laid out comprehensive solutions: integrated transit, modern bus fleets, dedicated lanes, proper licensing, urban mobility data, and pedestrian rights. What we lack is the will to implement them.
The governance crisis
Why do policies stall? Because the stakeholders who profit from chaos are stronger than those pushing for reform. Transport owners benefit from a lawless system that lets them maximise trips with little oversight. Officials benefit from rent-seeking in licensing and enforcement. Politicians benefit from patronage networks. And when the system fails, blame is endlessly shifted. A minister blames “reckless youth”, a mayor blames the BRTA, the BRTA blames the police — and in the end, no one pays the price except ordinary citizens.
This is not a transportation problem. It is a governance crisis.
Where accountability fails
The key question is this: who is responsible for making our roads safe? Not in theory — in practice. Which agency? Which leader? And if they fail, what consequences do they face?
In most functioning democracies, the answer is clear. In Bangladesh, it remains deliberately vague. Accountability is constantly diluted, responsibility perpetually diffused. And so, the carnage continues.
Lessons from 2018
The Nirapod Shorok Andolon was a reminder that change is possible — that young people still believe in justice and accountability. But it is not a burden they should bear alone. The next steps must come from those in power.
Let us be clear: the chaos on our roads is not an accident. It is the predictable result of the way we have chosen — or refused — to govern them.