Dhaka is the densest and one of the most rapidly urbanizing megacities in the world. Like other developing contexts, the city is struggling with a massive population which creates huge traffic congestion on roads. Addressing this issue, the first ever mass rapid transit project MRT-Line 6 has been initiated that is expected to be completed by 2021. Besides, the government holds a plan of making Transit Oriented Development (TOD) surrounding the future 16 station areas. TOD is a popular and recognized planning and design tool to achieve a dense, mix-used, walkable living neighborhood around a station. Although apparently, the strategy of executing TOD looks appropriate and promising, pedestrianization, a core element of TOD, has been heavily overlooked in the current planning process. Particularly, in an unplanned, almost developed city with only 600km of sidewalk, ensuring pedestrianization will not only be difficult but also the utmost challenging. Moreover, obstructions and encroachment by vendors and others make this situation more complex. Therefore, it was essential to critically consider pedestrianization in the mainstream planning process for making TOD sustainable in the context of Dhaka. This paper will attempt to identify the constraints of promoting pedestrianization around a future station area. Doing so, the study has been carried out on Motijheel, the central business district of Dhaka, which is considered one of the most challenging station areas. Within this area of investigation, with a physical survey, the existing scenario of pedestrian space and its adjacent road conditions are explored. Following that, a Geographic Information System (GIS) based analysis has been conducted to measure the level of obstructions within the 500 meter radius of Motijheel. Finally, based on the findings, the paper will also provide an overview of how dissimilar the pedestrian characteristics are compared to the developed countries that implemented TOD.@en

Khulna is the third largest thriving city of Bangladesh and surrounded by picturesque countryside, winding rivers, and a host of development centers. Since partition of British India in 1947, the city has been growing up as an important complex of trade, commerce and industries. This paper aims to relate the historical transformation of the morphology of the concern city by analyzing the spatial expansion. History reveals that the city arose as a market town on the bank of river Bhairab. At the very beginning of the paper, the Integration core has been tried to identify by analyzing the Master Plan of 1961. After identifying the initial urban core, the Master plan of 1993 & 2009 has been analyzed respectively by using Space Syntax, tool that simulates the likely social effects of urban designs, which has been done with axial analysis. It has been observed that the main Integration Core was initiated by the side of the river bank area as the river transports were the main catalysts for the City. Then with the time it shifted to the Dak-Bangla more/node, and now it has been found that the main vibrant nodal point is the Shib-Bari node.@en