Unclogging Dhaka city intersections

Whose right of way? More like 'right away'

Traffic Management: Lesson 1

Today marks the first in a series of traffic management articles that I will undertake – designed for the streets of my hometown Dhaka (and executable in all the other cities across the nation).

Just as anyone stuck in traffic has done time immemorial – I too have studied the traffic around me and been honed into an 'expert' in traffic management.

But before I go any further, I want to add that the difference between me and most self-trained (and self-professed) 'idle' traffic management experts, is that I have never designed traffic management situations in my mind as a fancy pass time or just a product of a burst of sudden insight; only to be forgotten by the next red light for another 'light bulb' moment.

Taking the metro for a ride

I never understood my native country – or at least perhaps intricate corruption has brought imbalance to priorities – because the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has to ask the government to make a decision on approving the metro rail that JICA is paying for (albeit in the form of a soft loan).

One needs not be in Dhaka city for too long to realise that one of the biggest problems the city dwellers face (apart from power cuts and a deteriorating law & order situation) is perennial traffic gridlock. These are the sorts of choked roads that rob hours of productivity and literally costs the country millions in lost wages and spent petrol fumes each day.

Just do it can be 'Oops!' moments too

Yesterday I posted my thoughts on procrastination and how (if anything) I set about changing my ways to stop procrastinating earlier – so that I had a little more time (although still painfully close a deadline that I had set for myself; adjusted from the original).

I find that the reason for my procrastination was the innate inability to 'just do it.' This problem is beyond my greater affinity to Adidas than to Nike; it has more to do with the fact that I am fairly relaxed as an individual and thus not usually surging with nervous energy and a fetish need to keep moving regardless of the insignificance of a quest.

It would seem that in my relaxed fashion, I contemplate (not over-analyse mind you; I act much before I begin to over analyse anything) and then gear myself up for the task at hand. Moreover I can judge fairly accurately the time frame required to get the job done.

While there are those who do over-analyse, there are also those who fastidiously follow the Nike motto and 'just do it.'

Procrastinating earlier

Imagine if today is as good as it'll ever get... would you continue to do things the same. What if today was the last day of your life?

As a dedicated procrastinator, even such revelations do little to jumpstart the system. The problem with me is that in my life everything got done by deadline. I should say that I probably procrastinated until the very, very last minute and then get right on it and accomplish the task (but usually only just).

Unfortunately the completed job was always as good as it'll ever be, which is to say that not only could the task NOT been improved upon if I had allowed myself more time but also that the quality of the finished product had always been above the mark.

And that is precisely why it had been so hard to change. Even more so because I could very well account my procrastination as a skillset and boast 'an ability to work under pressure.'

Making lemonade with life's lemons

There are moments when you fully understand what it means to be bigger than life – in my case it came from a moment when I witnessed (albeit through youtube) someone take the lemons that life has given him to not be sour faced about it but to actually make lemonade.

Emmanuel Kelly, a 17 year old Australian of Iraqi descent, probably faced his demons in front of a live studio audience while auditioning for 'the X-Factor' Australia.

Through the powerful words of John Lennon's 'Imagine' and his heartfelt rendition of that song he looks into the camera and tells his demons that he is bigger and stronger – and that he has not been (to borrow from Lennon) crippled inside.

What's in the numbers?

There has been news recently about a probe into possible corruption by the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., a substantial Canadian engineering firm, in connection with a World Bank funded bridge project in Bangladesh.

While the probe is now ongoing and the Canadian firm supposedly cooperating with the authorities – the possibility for corruption in a “mega” infrastructure project in Bangladesh is very certain.

When I first read about the probe, I recalled that I had heard that the Chinese had inaugurated a 26 kilometre bridge over the bay in one of their cities for HALF of what Bangladesh was paying for its 6 kilometre bridge!

The very idea seemed preposterous and at the brink of the credible... I mean, a 26 kilometre bridge! This needed a little digging to verify facts.