The bridge not taken

It was around 7:30am on a Wednesday.

The street towards the Banani intersection from Mohakhali near the capital's Sainik Club was bustling with speedy vehicles. Pedestrians, including office-goers, schoolkids and garment workers, were hurrying along the pavement.

However, many were crossing the street on foot, risking their lives. A footbridge with escalators was just yards away.

“We are in hurry. We have to join our work on time,” Fatima Khanom, who works at a garment factory in nearby Chairmanbari area, said when asked why she had taken the risk.

“I have to catch my class. It begins in less than half an hour,” said Rifat Hasan, a school-going teen.

Similar scenarios were seen at the place throughout the day. Those crossing the street that way gave similar excuses.

This dangerous practice is nothing new in the city. On many occasions, people were killed after being hit by vehicles while jaywalking. Some 40 percent of road accidents in the capital between 2010 and 2015 involved jaywalkers, according to reports published in this newspaper.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Nuruzzaman, who was making frantic efforts to control traffic on the street near Sainik Club, said the practice not only puts pedestrians' lives at peril but also poses risks for those driving or travelling in the vehicles.

Asked, he said, “I am not sure whether penalising them by mobile courts would wield any good results”.

Jaywalking was also seen at the busy intersection near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. At that place, the Dhaka North City Corporation in August last year had opened the country's second footbridge with escalators.

DNCC mayor Annisul Huq told The Daily Star that they were going to make two such footbridges --- one at Khilkhet and the other near hotel Radisson Blu.

Imported from Malaysia, the Tk 1.5-crore Banani escalator was installed at the footbridge under a World Bank-sponsored scheme, Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE), for first time on a pilot basis to encourage people to use overpass and prevent unsafe road crossing.

Shehab Ullah, one of the project directors, said that 23 footbridges have been built under the project across the city.

Dhaka South City Corporation has also taken a scheme to build around a dozen more footbridges with escalators, he added.