Bangladesh inaugurated its first aerial metro line in Dhaka on Wednesday, in a sprawling city suffocated by car traffic.
“We promised to eradicate traffic jams in Dhaka,” “with six metro lines, we will be able to do that,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said at a launch ceremony for the first line.
With its 22 million inhabitants, Dhaka is one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
According to local researchers, the work time lost in these traffic jams, which get on the nerves of the population, weighs up to 3 billion dollars a year on the economy of the capital.
Congestion is often aggravated by social events and monsoon rains.
Dhaka Skytrain is to have six lines with more than 100 stations by 2030.
The section inaugurated on Wednesday cost $2.8 billion, largely financed by Japanese development funds.
The line should be used by 60,000 people per hour when it is fully operational.
“We are counting on her. This will alleviate the suffering of the public,” said Mostafizur Rahman, who spends almost three hours every morning on the bus to get to work, told Agence France-Presse.
According to the independent organization Air Visual, Bangladesh was in 2020 the first country in the world for its air pollution. In this country, fine particle pollution levels are 15 times higher than the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).