Patients, the physically-challenged, women, the elderly and children often fail to avail themselves of overbridges to cross roads as they severely run out of energy while climbing them up, some of which equivalent to a height of two storeys, and thus consider it as time-consuming.
A number of such people were recently seen facing such difficulty in different areas of capital Dhaka.
All of them who braved the roads shared one common calculation: the risk associated with crossing the road at the ground level, snaking one’s way around stationary vehicles or even scrambling at the sight of speeding ones, was outweighed by the physical exertion and time it would take to cross overhead.
By far the more physically challenging part comes first, that is, in the very act of climbing up the stairs to get on the bridge.
There are three foot overbridges in the city’s Shahbagh area, all of them lacking any sort of special arrangement for people who may not be in an ideal shape to attempt the pretty steep climb, very often in sapping conditions brought on by the heat and humidity. And it is even worse for those nursing any disabilities.
One way around the problem that has been tried abroad could be to provide escalators on the side used to climb onto the overbridge.
Some very important institutions such as Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Medical University, Ibrahim Cardiac Medical College and BIRDEM Hospital are located in the area.
A number of pedestrians there expressed their frustration and distress at the risks they were forced to take, just to cross the road.
Rabbi Bhuiyan, a second-year student of Dhaka University, said, “I feel sorry but there is nothing to do for the patients, physically challenged people, women, and children who struggle to cross the roads.”
Suman came to the PG hospital with his mother who was not able to walk. But he was seen crossing the road using the foot overbridge carrying his mother in his arms.
Coming down the other side, clearly exhausted, he laments how much easier it would have been had there only been a lift or escalator to get on the bridge -- as some cities in southeast Asia do it.
Dhaka’s two city corporations have so far built over 80 such overbridges in the city, with 32 in South City Corporation and 49 in North City Corporation. But only two of them -- one at Banani and another near the Airport -- have the escalator facilities.
Though it was planned to provide the escalator at one end of every overbridge, there has been no progress so far, UNB reported.
Contacted, DSCC Chief Engineer Al Ahmed said, “One of the key functions of the engineering department of the city corporation is to construct the footbridges and underpasses, but we didn’t think too much for the patients, the physically-challenged, women, the elderly and children in the design.”
He further said, “But we’re planning to provide special services, making the best use of technology soon. We’ve launched a feasibility test in six places for setting up escalators.”
Joint Secretary of 'Bangladesh Environment Movement' and architect Iqbal Habib also expressed frustration and said all the infrastructure projects are taken up to serve the purpose of businesspeople, not the common people.
Stressing the big change in the current system of traffic management, he also said the city corporations should design their work, aiming to serve the people. All possible things should be addressed for making a project user-friendly before finalising it.
