WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD instead of using the footbridge?

Rahima Khatun tries to cross the busy Mirpur 10 circle, with her four-year-old daughter in her arms. She waits for a while and when the traffic slows down, she runs across the road. But once she reaches the middle of the road, three police officers stop her and ask her to use the footover bridge. Rahima requests the officers to excuse her this time around as she is running late, but the officers make her turn back anyway.

The same thing happens to 48-year-old Ali Hossain, who is carrying a large bag of readymade garments on his back at the Farmgate intersection, when the police stops him and compels him to use the footover bridge.

This is the latest attempt by the traffic division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) to prevent jaywalking. Mir Rezaul Karim, ADC, Traffic Division, DMP explains that in addition to their regular monitoring, the traffic division of DMP and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) have also been conducting mobile courts to prevent jaywalking. They have been fining pedestrians for illegally crossing the roads in spite of having a footover bridge nearby. In fact, the way the Rover scouts and the Red Crescent volunteers have been compelling jaywalkers to use foot bridges, has caused long queues of people waiting to get on the bridges.

According to the Accident Research Institute (ARI) of BUET, jaywalking causes a total of 1740 pedestrian casualties in Dhaka from 2011-2015. Despite repeated attempts, there are no significant changes in the behaviour of our pedestrians—once the campaigns end, we go back to our old habits.

It is true that citizens should be more conscious about their roles; they cannot expect a better traffic system without abiding by traffic rules and regulations. Yet, at the same time, we must ask, do our pedestrians actually have accessible or available mediums they need to cross roads? Why is it that people express negative attitudes towards our overbridges and take unnecessary risks to jaywalk?

“How can it be an accessible medium for a person like me?” asks 56-year-old Monsur Ahmed, who works at a firm in Farmgate. “Forget about the disabled or people who are ill, it requires too much effort even for me; I don't have the energy to use this footover bridge after walking for more than half an hour from my home to the office. Most of these overbridges are occupied by hawkers and no one seems to care about it,” he adds.

Although steps have been taken by both the city corporations to beautify the overpasses, a survey conducted by the Department of Civil Engineering, DUET in 2015 found that people don't use footover bridges because they perceive these as unsecure, time-consuming, dirty, require long detours and too much effort.

Experts believe that in order to ensure pedestrian safety, there is no alternative to establishing pedestrian-friendly and accessible mediums for road crossings. In fact, the Strategic Transport Plan 2013 of the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges alsorecommendsensuring pedestrians' priority while crossing roads.

According to urban planner and architect Iqbal Habib, an overpass needs proper planning and engineering to make it accessible for pedestrians; one cannot arbitrarily decide to institute an overpass in a particular place.

“For example, at the BanglaMotor intersection, there is a trafficsignal, but people still have to usethe footoverbridge there. Again, from Uttara to airport, there should be more footover bridges, but there aren't. In most of the countries, people can use zebra crossings in speedy corridors, so that pedestrians need not to pursue any tiresome medium to cross roads. But, here, we are replacing zebra crossings with high overpasses,” he says.

“Pedestrians usually prefer using underpasses rather than overpasses, which is not followed here. But more importantly, whatever you build, you must add an elevator or escalator, so that people including the disabled, elderly and those carrying goods or luggage can move easily. This should not be optional. But here, our authorities are investing a good amount of money in the name of pedestrian-friendly road management system, which later come to no use. And in this way, they are doing an injustice to a large number of pedestrians,” he adds. 

However, Syed Kudrat Ullah, additional chief engineer of the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC)says that currently they have no plan for building footbridges friendly to the disabled or the elderly. “But we are working on creating zebra crossings in every important intersection, for those who can't use foot bridges,” he says. “Besides, we cannot use escalators on all our foot bridges, because it is very expensive to operate and maintain them. Initially, we started with two, but we are unable to maintain it due to our dust problem. Also, these foot bridges which have escalators cannot carry the load of the huge number of our pedestrians,” he adds.

Professor Moazzem Hossain, director of ARI,argues that cost is not the real issue for the government when it comes to creating a pedestrian-friendly city. “We'vebeen advocating for an integrated plan for a long time, but no one is focusing on it,” he says.

There needs to be proper research to create accessible crossings, taking into consideration pedestrian movements, the number of people using the crossings, their ages, abilities and so on. Currently, the city corporations are in charge of establishing footover bridges in the city; however, Habib argues that they do not have the necessary expertise to plan, build and maintain the overpasses. One need only refer to the newly-constructed foot bridge at Farmgate, established by the DNCC as an example of what Habib is talking about—the pillars of the bridge blocked the narrow footpath and the passers-by had to squeeze through it.

Besides, there are different provisions, such as the City Corporations Act 2009, the Motor Vehicle Act 1983, and the Metropolitan Act for pedestrians' welfare to ensure that they are not endangered on the roads and can walksafely and easily. The authorities must acknowledge and address the valid reasons for pedestrians' reluctance to use overbridges before they compel everyone to use them.