The residents of the city appealed to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to install overhead bridges at different busy roads to ensure the safety of pedestrians.
The residents have called for bridges to be constructed at the Faisal Avenue, Zero Point Interchange, 9th Avenue, 7th Avenue, I.J Principal Road, Islamabad Highway and Kashmir Highway.
Faisal Amin, a resident of G-8 sector, said the pedestrian bridges would help reduce accidents on the roads: “You can see that the two-lane road has turned into a five-lane road because everybody wants to pass through it at the same time.”
Muhammad Ramazan, a road safety campaigner, claimed that many people lost their lives and got injured while crossing these busy thoroughfares for lack of pedestrian bridges.
He said the people who crossed these roads put their lives in danger. “The situation worsens witnessed during peak hours when students, women and elderly people have to wait for long periods of time to safely cross the road,” he said.
Abdul Karim, a resident of Iqbal H-9, said: “The road is too wide to allow pedestrians to cross.”
He said billions of rupees were spent on the construction of new avenues to ensure smooth traffic flow but little attention had been paid to the safety of pedestrians.
When contacted, a senior CDA official said the CDA already had installed over-head bridges at some busy pedestrian crossings.
He added that pedestrian bridges would be installed at four locations at Zero Point as a part of the Zero Point Interchange project.
The official said the design of the under-construction pedestrian bridge at the Islamabad Highway had been altered after considering the width of the road to avoid any accident.
Now steel girders would be used in the bridge’s construction along with concrete.
