BRAC UNIVERSITY DORMITORY RENNOVATION DESIGN

Dorm: Nikunja and Maloncho

Location: Savar, Dhaka

Multipurposing Flyovers

Under UNDP Funded Research Project

Principal Investigator

Project Information

Year: 2021- 2022

Senior Research Associate

Research Associate

Location: Savar, Dhaka,Bangladesh

Duration: 8 Months

Like other developing countries in the Global South, Bangladesh is urbanizing at an unprecedented pace.1 Every year nearly half a million people from the rural hinterland pour into the capital city, Dhaka, in search of work and better lives. Cities, large and small, have become the nerve centers of the country’s economic, social, and cultural growth. Dhaka and Chittagong together account for nearly 50% of the country’s GDP. Bangladesh’s future is decidedly urban.

One of the biggest challenges of urbanization in Bangladesh is creating efficient and sustainable networks of transportation infrastructure in highly populous cities. This challenge is exacerbated by the diminishing land supply as the urban population increases and the built environment expands, while also increasing density. As in other developing countries (or developed countries in the post-World War II era), flyovers and elevated expressways have become a standard response to vehicular and mass-circulation demands in congested Bangladeshi cities.

City life in urban agglomerations like Dhaka and Chattogram (other Bangladeshi cities are expected to follow suit in the coming decades) is substantially transformed by the introduction of flyovers, expressways, and other multilevel road infrastructures. Currently, Dhaka has eight completed flyovers with a total length of over 30 km.2 Four under-construction elevated infrastructures will add another 22 km to the current length. The combined length of Dhaka Metro Rail-MRT 6, MRT 4, and MRT 5 will be 88 km. That is a total of 140 km of single-use elevated circulatory infrastructures with considerable underutilized urban land below amid high-demand urban corridors.

Current informal uses of the underside of flyovers reveal that single-use road infrastructures can be transformed into integrated systems of multiple urban functions. In Dhaka, a city with a population density of 153,390 per sq. mi, one of the highest in the world, single-use flyovers are a waste of urban land and a missed opportunity to transform an elevated expressway into a multipurpose community-oriented infrastructure.

This report asks a series of research questions: Are single-use flyovers in Dhaka city—a land-scarce country—a sustainable and cost-effective urban response to the challenges of mobility? Are the prime lands under flyovers, hovering over dense urban areas, optimally utilized to yield maximum advantage to city people of all socioeconomic classes, local communities, and the city at large? How do urban planners incorporate current informal usages into an efficient and inclusive system that works for high-density cities? What kind of urban planning policies would foster multipurpose flyovers that are integrated with everyday urban life?