Railway transference urbanism: railway station as a potential socio-economic urban component

Abstract

Railway transit corridor routes of 2855 Km in Bangladesh is cohesively integrated with important sections of the existing urban fabric of the country. Almost 65 million passengers and 2.52 million tons of freight are carried each year by railways in Bangladesh. At present, the role of railway transits and the urbanity surrounding railway stations in Dhaka city are almost greyed out to the least as they are neither encouraged nor promptly used as daily commuter modes. As a result, the ease of transference of urban people is now in an alarming condition throughout the city. Theresearch focuses on formulating a land use policy that can promote the railway transference by improving the relations among the urban-built environment, user groups and their economic activities in the Tejgaon station area, a major railway transit of Dhaka city. Regarding the 1200 m radius of Transit Oriented Development (TOD), the study involved participants’ observations including an ethnographic study and a questionnaire survey for the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. The sample context Tejgaonis the core industrial area of Dhaka city that is adjacent to Kawran Bazar, which is the largest wholesale and retail kitchen raw market of the city. Kawran Bazar is intricately connected with the kitchen raw economy of at least twelve districts of the country. This paper explores the transference potential of high speed locomotion of railway by finding and proposing new & efficient land use programs among the user group of the railway station, adjacent wholesale market economy and the neighbourhood units. Design strategies proposes balance of the ‘non-place’ with dynamic urban place. Finally, an integrated plan is suggested to balance different layers of urban movement for pedestrian, vehicular and locomotives to foster better mobility performance in each of aforementioned scenarios.