[🇧🇩] City Buses, Metro Rail, Urban Transport & City Road Infra

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A transformative transport vision for Dhaka

The unveiling of the updated Strategic Transport Plan (STP) for Dhaka marks an important moment in the city's long and often frustrating struggle against traffic congestion, inadequate public transport and unplanned urban expansion. The proposal, which estimates a requirement of nearly US$64 billio

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

A transformative transport vision for Dhaka

Wasi Ahmed

Published :
Jul 01, 2026 00:03
Updated :
Jul 01, 2026 00:04

The unveiling of the updated Strategic Transport Plan (STP) for Dhaka marks an important moment in the city's long and often frustrating struggle against traffic congestion, inadequate public transport and unplanned urban expansion. The proposal, which estimates a requirement of nearly US$64 billion in transport investment over the next two decades, is undoubtedly ambitious. Yet, considering the magnitude of Dhaka's mobility crisis and the economic costs associated with it, the real question is not whether such investment is large, but whether the nation can afford to delay it any longer.

Dhaka has long been ranked among the world's most congested cities. Every day, millions of commuters lose valuable hours navigating clogged roads, while businesses suffer from delayed deliveries, reduced productivity and rising operational costs. The human cost is equally significant. Lengthy commutes diminish quality of life, increase stress and contribute to environmental pollution.

What distinguishes the revised plan is its recognition that solving Dhaka's transport woes requires more than constructing additional roads. The proposal envisages an integrated transport ecosystem comprising eight metro rail lines, five monorail routes, bus corridors serving as feeder networks, expressways, tunnels, pedestrian skywalks, and transit-oriented development projects. Such a multi-modal approach reflects international best practices and acknowledges that modern urban mobility depends on the seamless interaction of different transport modes.

Particularly noteworthy is the plan's emphasis on strengthening public transportation. Survey findings reveal a troubling decline in bus usage over the years. Once accounting for nearly a third of urban trips, bus transport now represents only a small fraction of daily travel. This decline is symptomatic of a system that has struggled to provide reliable, comfortable and efficient services. As commuters increasingly turn to smaller vehicles, traffic congestion has intensified, creating a vicious cycle of inefficiency.

The proposed shift towards bus-based mass transit, including Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) services, therefore deserves strong support. Buses remain the most cost-effective means of transporting large numbers of people in densely populated cities. When integrated with metro rail networks and supported by dedicated corridors, modern bus systems can significantly reduce dependence on private vehicles and improve accessibility for low and middle-income residents. The recommendation to prioritise public transport over small passenger vehicles reflects a strategic understanding that sustainable mobility cannot be achieved through road expansion alone.

Equally significant is the plan's focus on pedestrians and non-motorised transport. The survey findings indicate that short-distance trips, particularly those within 400 metres, are predominantly undertaken on foot, while rickshaws continue to dominate journeys of up to four kilometres. These realities underline the need for safer sidewalks, improved pedestrian infrastructure and better integration of traditional transport modes into the broader urban mobility framework. The inclusion of bicycle lanes, expanded footpaths, and pedestrian-friendly facilities signals a welcome recognition that transport planning must serve all users, not merely motorists.

Another notable feature of the strategy is its effort to explore innovative financing mechanisms. Road pricing, betterment levies and value-capture financing are expected to generate substantial revenue over the implementation period. Such measures have been successfully employed in many global cities to both manage traffic demand and finance infrastructure development. However, introducing road pricing in Dhaka will require careful planning, transparent implementation and strong public communication. Without public confidence and visible improvements in transport services, such measures may encounter resistance.

The financing challenge remains formidable. While the report suggests that a significant portion of the required investment could be accommodated within existing spending capacities, substantial funding gaps remain. Mobilising resources to execute the plan will require innovative public-private partnerships, international financing support and sustained political commitment across successive administrations. Transport infrastructure projects often span decades, making continuity of policy and institutional stability essential for success.

Institutional reform, therefore, emerges as a crucial component of the proposed strategy. The recommendation to strengthen the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority by transforming it into a more empowered urban transport authority reflects a practical recognition of existing governance challenges. Dhaka's transport sector has long suffered from fragmented responsibilities across multiple agencies, often resulting in duplication, delays and poor coordination. A stronger central authority could help ensure coherent planning, effective implementation and greater accountability.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the updated plan is the extensive consultation process that led to its preparation. Drawing upon numerous surveys and engaging dozens of agencies across various ministries, the strategy reflects a data-driven approach to policymaking. Such evidence-based planning increases the likelihood that future investments will address actual travel patterns and emerging mobility needs rather than merely responding to short-term pressures.

Yet plans alone do not solve urban problems. Dhaka has witnessed several transport master plans over the years, some of which achieved notable progress while others remained largely on paper. The true measure of success will lie not in the vision outlined in reports but in the consistency and determination with which that vision is implemented.

As Dhaka continues to grow into one of the world's largest megacities, the stakes could hardly be higher. Efficient transport is not simply about reducing travel times; it is about enhancing economic competitiveness, improving environmental sustainability, expanding social inclusion and improving the quality of urban life. The updated Strategic Transport Plan presents a rare opportunity to reshape the future trajectory of the capital. The challenge now is to convert ambition into action and ensure that the city moves steadily towards a future where mobility becomes an enabler of progress rather than a daily obstacle to it.​

 

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Metro Rail extension to Kamalapur is not far

The metro rail extension to Kamalapur is nearing completion, with trial operations starting January and passenger services commencing in April next year.

en.prothomalo.com

Metro Rail extension to Kamalapur is not far

Anowar Hossain
Dhaka
Published: 11 Jul 2026, 16: 07

Construction of the elevated viaduct between Motijheel and Kamalapur has been completed. The Kamalapur metro station has also been built. Workers are now installing tiles and granite, carrying out painting, and completing other finishing work. Suvra Kanti Das

Md Mohsin Hossain lives in Kazipara, Mirpur, in Dhaka. Once a week, he travels to his hometown in Brahmanbaria. He takes the metro from Kazipara Station to Motijheel Station, then hires a rickshaw for Tk 50 to reach Kamalapur, where he boards either a bus or a train. He follows the same route in reverse when returning home.

Mohsin Hossain told Prothom Alo, "Once the metro rail starts operating up to Kamalapur, I will save both time and money. I am eagerly waiting for the metro service to reach Kamalapur."

Many commuters share his anticipation. The authorities plan to begin metro rail operations between Motijheel and Kamalapur in January next year.

However, the initial operation will be without passengers, as the service will begin on a trial basis. The authorities plan to launch commercial passenger services to Kamalapur three months later, in April.

According to sources at the metro rail authority, construction of the elevated viaduct between Motijheel and Kamalapur has been completed.

The Kamalapur metro station has also been built. Workers are now installing tiles and granite, carrying out painting, and completing other finishing work.

However, installation of the railway track and electrical systems has only recently begun. These activities fall under the electro-mechanical package, which includes power supply, signalling systems and railway track installation.

The government approved the extension of the metro rail to Kamalapur in 2022.

In 2023, the authorities appointed contractors to construct the elevated viaduct and the Kamalapur station. Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited, based in Thailand, is carrying out the civil construction work on the Motijheel–Kamalapur section under a contract worth Tk 5.11 billion (511 crore).

The original plan was to open this section in June 2025. In 2023, the authorities appointed contractors to construct the elevated viaduct and the Kamalapur station.

Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited, based in Thailand, is carrying out the civil construction work on the Motijheel–Kamalapur section under a contract worth Tk 5.11 billion (511 crore). The company has engaged MacDonald Steel of Bangladesh as its local partner.

The appointment of a contractor for the electro-mechanical works took longer. During the previous Awami League government, the contractor submitted a bid of Tk 6.51 billion (651 crore) for the work.

After the interim government assumed office, it pressed the contractor to reduce the project cost.

Following negotiations, the contract value was reduced by Tk 1.86 billion (186 crore). Last year, the authorities awarded the contract to the Indian company Larsen & Toubro for Tk 4.65 billion (465 crore).

The Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) is responsible for constructing and operating the metro rail system in Dhaka.

According to the organisation's latest monthly report, work on the Motijheel–Kamalapur section had reached 78.38 per cent completion by the end of June.

The original projection estimated that the metro line between Uttara and Motijheel would carry 500,000 passengers each day.

At present, however, more than 400,000 passengers use the metro daily. Once the extension to Kamalapur opens, daily ridership is expected to increase to 677,000 passengers.

The authorities plan to begin metro rail operations between Motijheel and Kamalapur in January next year. Suvra Kanti Das

Work still remaining

The Motijheel–Kamalapur extension has been divided into two project packages. The civil works package covers construction of the elevated viaduct and the Kamalapur station.

Before train operations can begin, the authorities must complete seven additional components: railway track installation, lifts, escalators, display monitors, platform screen doors aligned with the train doors, signalling systems, and automated fare collection equipment.

The project also includes the installation of substations and the electrical infrastructure required to operate both the trains and the station building.

All these activities fall under a single electro-mechanical package. No additional trains or rolling stock will be required for the extension, as 24 train sets have already been imported.

According to DMTCL sources, work to install the railway track, power poles and overhead electrical wiring on the Motijheel–Kamalapur section began on 4 July.

The authorities plan to complete this work by August. However, installation of the signalling system, automated fare collection and station access system, and platform screen doors will require additional time.

We are moving forward with the goal of launching passenger services to Kamalapur in the first week of April next year. If everything proceeds according to plan, trial operations will begin in January.

All the equipment for these systems will come from Nippon Signal Co., Ltd. of Japan. The authorities have already placed the orders.

However, because many countries are currently seeking similar equipment, Bangladesh has not yet received its consignment.

If the arrival of the Japanese equipment is delayed for any reason, the authorities may ensure the commencement of trial operations by temporarily using equipment installed at other metro stations as an alternative.

However, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) expects to receive the required equipment before January.

Sources concerned said that two months of trial operations would normally have been sufficient.

However, because the metro currently operates passenger services between Uttara and Motijheel, conducting trial runs during the daytime is not feasible.

Instead, testing along the full Uttara–Kamalapur route will take place after midnight, once regular passenger services have ended. As a result, completing the trial operation will require a longer period.

Mohammad Abdul Wahab, project director of the Uttara–Kamalapur Metro Rail Construction Project, told Prothom Alo, "We are moving forward with the goal of launching passenger services to Kamalapur in the first week of April next year. If everything proceeds according to plan, trial operations will begin in January." He added, "Work on the remaining section between Motijheel and Kamalapur is progressing at full pace."

Country’s first metro rail

The Uttara–Agargaon section of Dhaka's first metro rail began operations on 28 December 2022. The Agargaon–Motijheel section followed on 4 November 2023.

The official name of the metro line running from Uttara to Kamalapur is MRT Line-6. The distance from Uttara to Motijheel is 20.1 kilometres, while the full distance to Kamalapur is 21.26 kilometres, making the extension 1.16 kilometres long. The complete Uttara–Kamalapur route will include 17 stations.

When the project received approval in 2012, its estimated cost stood at Tk 219.85 billion (21.985 crore). The total project cost has since increased to Tk 334.72 billion (33.472 crore).

Bangladesh has secured a loan of Tk 197.18 billion (19.718 crore) from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to finance the project.

According to DMTCL sources, the authorities also plan to extend the metro rail from Uttara to Tongi in the future.

This extension would add approximately 7.5 kilometres to the line and include five new stations. However, the government has not yet approved a project for this extension.

The government plans to construct six metro rail lines across Dhaka with a combined length of approximately 140 kilometres. The network will integrate the individual lines into a comprehensive metro rail system.

Construction is already under way on two additional metro rail projects: one connecting Kamalapur with Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, and another running from Savar to Bhatara via Gabtoli, Mirpur and Gulshan.

The government has also approved a project to construct another metro rail line from Gabtoli to Dasherkandi via Mohammadpur and Karwan Bazar.

In addition, the current BNP government plans to integrate several monorail routes with the metro rail network.​

 

[Saif]

Dhaka: How a city was planned to drown

Dhaka waterlogging is driven by colonial urban planning that deliberately destroyed historic Dhaka canals and wetlands.

www.thedailystar.net

Dhaka: How a city was planned to drown

Dhrubo Alam and Farah Mahboob

In 1840, the East India Company’s civil surgeon at Dacca, James Taylor, watched the Buriganga swell with the monsoon and reached for a comparison that has cast a shadow over the city ever since. The river in flood, he wrote in Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca, gave the city “the appearance, like that of Venice in the west, of a city rising from the surface of the water.” This was not idle flattery. The Mughal capital that Subadar Islam Khan founded in 1610 was built as an amphibious place. He ordered the digging of the Dholai Khal, which served as a moat, drain, and trade highway, stitching the Buriganga to the Balu and the Lakhya. Water was not the setting for Dhaka. It was its infrastructure.

However, read Taylor a few pages on, and a second, more consequential colonial instinct surfaces. Describing the decaying town of Panam, he dwells on its “stagnant creeks and ponds,” its rank vegetation, and the “sickly emaciated appearance of its inhabitants” — proof, to his eye, that it was among the district’s most unhealthy places. In the very volume that likened Dhaka to Venice lies the idea that would eventually unmake the city: the nineteenth-century conviction that standing water bred disease and that improving a city meant, above all, draining it of water. This is the part usually left out of the mourning for Dhaka’s lost khals (canals). Their disappearance is a tale of negligence, greed, and weak enforcement. However, beneath the encroachment and lack of maintenance lies something older and more deliberate: an imported idea that water is a nuisance rather than an asset. That idea has outlasted the empire that brought it, and it has proved far more destructive than any single land grabber.

The exact number of canals Dhaka has lost is uncertain, and that uncertainty is revealing. WASA's records list 54 canals until the mid-1980s; a widely cited figure suggests that the newly independent country inherited 57, of which perhaps 26 still function; other estimates range from 43 to well over 100. No agency keeps a definitive historical register, which is itself a measure of how casually the waterways were allowed to disappear. The reframing was gradual.

View attachment 1784074345564.png
An early detailed survey of Dhaka and its riverine surroundings, showing the Buriganga, Lakhya, and Dhaleshwari channels before the transformations of the nineteenth century. Source: Plate XII, Plan of the Environs of the City of Dacca [map], by J. Rennell (engraved by W. Harrison), 1780.

As the railways displaced river-borne commerce from the 1880s, the historian Iftekhar Iqbal has shown, the colonial city turned its back on the Buriganga and reoriented itself “towards land”. The waterfront, stripped of trade, lost its status. Water that no longer carried goods was recast as a sanitary liability—a breeding ground to be filled. Drainage schemes were drawn up not to preserve the khals, but to abolish them.

The clearest proof of this mindset is a single, remarkable document. In 1917, the Scottish biologist and town planner Patrick Geddes, among the most respected planners of his generation, was asked to advise on the future of Dacca. In his report, he records, with unmistakable dismay, an earlier government engineering scheme “for the improvement and sanitation of Dacca” that proposed, in plain terms, filling up the city’s khals—twelve and a half miles of them. The costs were tabulated like a merchant’s ledger: roughly seven and a half lakh rupees to fill the canals, against some fifty acres of building land to be gained. Water in one column and land in the other. It is difficult to imagine a purer statement of colonial calculus.

Geddes was horrified, and his answer was a path that Dhaka never took. He invited any European or travelling Indian who had seen the canals of Holland and Belgium to look afresh at “this splendid old Dolai Khal” and to weigh, against the cost of filling it, “the vast loss and waste” of leaving it to rot. He urged that the khals be dredged to revive their boat traffic, that their silt be spread to enrich the city’s gardens, and that their waters be stocked for pisciculture. Then he did what the sanitary engineers never contemplated: he turned their own argument inside out, suggesting that Dhaka’s relative freedom from malaria was itself bound up with its “ample water-supply.” In his reading, the khals were not the source of the disease. They were part of the defence.

Beneath the encroachment and lack of maintenance lies something older and more deliberate: an imported idea that water is a nuisance rather than an asset. That idea has outlasted the empire that brought it, and it has proved far more destructive than any single land grabber.

Geddes lost. Over the following decades, the Dholai Khal was buried until only a fragment remained open to the sky. That defeat changed the course of Dhaka's urban history. What followed was not inevitable. In 1917, Patrick Geddes, one of the world's leading planners, had already laid out a clear alternative: work with the water, not against it. It was a choice between two philosophies, and at every turn, the colonial one prevailed. Independence did not break the habit; it bureaucratised it instead.

When the British firm Minoprio, Spencely and Macfarlane drew up the first modern master plan for the Dacca Improvement Trust—the agency that became RAJUK in 1987—in the late 1950s, they defined the city’s central problem in terms that Taylor’s engineer would have applauded: a shortage of land above flood level, to be relieved by reclaiming more of it and by strict “economy in land use.” The scarce, valuable commodity was dry ground; water was merely low-lying land waiting to be filled. Geddes's question, what the water was for, had disappeared from the planners' vocabulary altogether.

Independence in 1947 did not change the thinking. It gave the state the machinery to put it into practice. Whereas a colonial engineer could only propose filling a dozen miles of khals, the modern state could actually do it, and far more, with hydraulic dredgers, imported sand, and fleets of earthmovers.

Dacca, from A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma and Ceylon (1:28,000), John Murray, 1924.

Comparing the cadastral survey maps of 1880–1940 with recent satellite imagery, a 2022 study by the River and Delta Research Centre counted roughly 175 canals, channels, and lakes in historic Dhaka. Of these, about 80 have vanished entirely and another 15 have shrunk drastically, while the city’s watercourses have contracted from around 326 km to 206 km. The figures for wetlands are worse. A 2012 study by the Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services found that Dhaka had lost roughly three-quarters of its perennial wetlands in four decades—some 15,000 of the 20,282 hectares that survived in 1967 are now built over. The rivers that once framed the city are being strangled in parallel, with recent surveys identifying hundreds of waste outfalls pouring into the Buriganga alone.

None of these losses is anonymous. In 1989, with funding from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, a series of natural canals in the city’s heart—among them stretches of the Dholai Khal, Segunbagicha, and Panthapath—were encased in box culverts and paved over as roads, a decision urban experts have regretted ever since. The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) has been responsible for these channels for decades as they gradually silted up and shrank. The Bangladesh Water Development Board’s flood-control embankments, built after the catastrophic floods of 1988 and 1998, sealed the western part of the city off from its rivers and, by cutting the natural lines of drainage, turned ‘protected’ neighbourhoods into bowls that now flood from within after an hour of rain. RAJUK, which describes itself as the custodian of Dhaka's development, presided over the master plans that reclassified floodplains as buildable land, even as its own satellite townships rose on filled wetlands.

The consequences of this colonial mindset are written into Dhaka's ordinary streets. Before Panthapath became a major road, it was a canal that carried boats from Hatirjheel through Dhanmondi to the Buriganga, older residents recall. It was later sealed beneath a box culvert, leaving the water it once carried with nowhere to go. Multiply that small erasure across the city, and you have the modern condition: a metropolis that, planners note again and again, goes under after a mere 30 to 40 millimetres of rain, its drains overwhelmed by the still water that follows.

The Natural Water Bodies Protection Act of 2000 was meant to prevent the filling of canals, floodplains, and retention ponds. The Bangladesh Institute of Planners has documented that the metropolitan area lost more than half of its designated flood-flow zones in a single decade, much of it to housing, including schemes by government agencies themselves. Critics of the 2016–2035 Detailed Area Plan argue that, by permitting “conditional” construction in general flood-flow zones, it effectively converts encroachment into policy. The colonial ledger—water traded for land—has, in places, become the official plan.

Open spaces in Dhaka's 1960s master plan. Source: DIT (1960).

Governments have continued to promise a fix. On the final day of 2020, WASA handed 26 canals and ten kilometres of box culverts to the two city corporations, promising that the capital's waterlogging would finally be solved. Five years and more than Tk 730 crore later, the same roads still disappear under water after heavy rain. Public money continues to be spent on the symptoms—clogged, narrowed and buried channels—while the underlying problem remains untouched: a planning philosophy, carried across a century and three states, that treats water as an obstacle to development rather than part of it.

Dhaka has already seen alternative approaches. The restoration of the Hatirjheel–Begunbari wetland into a functioning retention lake, despite the fact that later construction has compromised it, proved that a filled and fouled waterbody can be brought back to hold the city’s stormwater and cool its air. This is, in essence, precisely what Geddes proposed in 1917: cleanse and deepen rather than fill; treat the khals as sources of fertility, transport, and protection rather than as vacant real estate. A city serious about that idea would make its flood-flow zones inviolable public water rather than “conditionally” developable; it would trace every surviving canal from the old survey maps and defend its banks; and it would judge RAJUK, WASA, and the city corporations not by the projects they announce but by the retention capacity they actually restore.

Vehicles navigate severe waterlogging in Dhaka, illustrating the modern reality of a metropolis that routinely goes under after a mere 30 to 40 millimetres of rain. Photo: Prabir Das

The draining of Dhaka is often presented as a story of neglect, as though the city simply sleepwalked into being drowned. But it began with a deliberate idea: a colonial planning philosophy that taught a delta city to see its own water as a liability rather than an asset. That idea outlived the empire, was embraced by successive governments, and was ultimately carried to completion by modern machines. Recognising that history is not merely an academic exercise. It is the first step towards reversing it, because a mistake can only be regretted, but a decision can be undone.

Dhrubo Alam is Deputy Transport Planner at the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), and Farah Mahboob is Deputy Manager at the Social Innovation Lab, BRAC.​