RAWALPINDI – Most of the residents living across the Benazir Bhutto Road (Murree Road) seem to have no interest in using the overhead bridges built on various points to facilitate them.
Despite warnings by the city traffic police, the pedestrians seem not to take the extra effort to climb the bridges, and instead, just walk across the road.
They are generally reluctant to use the nearby overhead bridges like the old guy saying, “I’m in a hurry and don’t care. I have to reach office.”
Most of the city overhead bridges, meant for safe and easy crossing of jam-packed roads and railway tracks, turned into business centres due to the sheer negligence of the authorities concerned causing bothersome to the citizens.
Fortune-tellers, palmists, quack dentists and beggars have encroached most of the space on the bridges and turned this facility into irksome for the pedestrians, especially for women. Hawkers and vendors on overhead bridges have grabbed spaces of two to three feet each, selling merchandise ranging from food items, glasses and minute household items to cheap daily use items like watches, radios and toys etc.
A city traffic warden talking to this agency said they are doing their best to educate the road users and different signboards have also been installed to guide the road users. “I agree that most of the pedestrians prefer shortcut, avoid use of these overhead bridges and face road accidents,” he said. He added that City police would continue efforts to educate road users. The Warden also requested the people to use overhead bridges as they were erected for their safety.
Muhammad Afzal, a car owner, said the government has spent millions of rupees to facilitate people living for their safety, but most of the pedestrians are not using this facility, he regretted. Muhammad Shafi, a public transport driver of route one complained that mostly people did not use the bridge for crossing the road and create hindrance in traffic flow.