Improving Pedestrian Safety and Traffic Operations at a Major Unsignalized Arterial Intersection in Dhaka City

摘要

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has been emerged as one of the most densely populated, congested, and unsafe cities in the world today. In an effort to improve traffic operations on Dhaka city roadways, government has been building flyovers at major bottleneck locations. Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover has recently been connected to Saheed Captain Mansur Ali Sarani (SCMAS), which is a heavily travelled north-south arterial road. The SCMAS and Old Elephant Road (OER) intersection is a major un-signalized intersection that facilitates pedestrian crossings on SCMAS. The surrounding area of the intersection includes a large number of educational institutions, government offices, hospitals and high-rise residential and commercial buildings. As such, the pedestrians (including students and general public) heavily utilize the SCMAS and OER intersection crossings. However, due to a heavy vehicular flow level on SCMAS, the intersection crosswalks not only become a major safety hazard for pedestrians but also a major cause of traffic operations problems on SCMAS (particularly in the south bound direction). The purpose of this study is to find a compromised solution to both pedestrian crossing and traffic operations problem on SCMAS. Based on comprehensive field study and pedestrian opinion survey, it is found that a pedestrian foot-over-bridge with an elevator service would be a desirable solution to the problem not only for safe pedestrian crossings but also for traffic operations improvements on SCMAS.