showcases potential
Extremely busy first day ends in tailbacks, showcases potential
The Padma Bridge witnessed huge pressure of traffic and a crowd of onlookers Sunday, the very first day it opened for vehicular movement, creating tailbacks on both sides of the long-awaited bridge.
The sheer volume of vehicles that showed up to cross the bridge from either side led to an excruciating wait at the toll plazas, to pay the toll and get cleared to go. This primarily was the source of the tailbacks.
Hundreds of vehicles including buses, trucks, private cars, motorbikes, and ambulances were seen waiting in front of the two toll plazas at Mawa point and Nowdoba point of Shariatpur. They are not maintaining queues and trying to cross each other haphazardly in front of the toll plazas.
Besides, the process of collecting tolls is also very slow. Army personnel are finding it difficult to maintain discipline due to the unruly behaviour of the drivers. There are also hundreds of motorbikes on both ends of the bridge who seem to be there only for sightseeing.
Vehicles remained stuck for over 2kms from Mawa point toll plaza and over 1.5 Km from Nowdoba point at around 8 pm.
According to the witnesses, the traffic pressure kept increasing from the afternoon.
2 years ago