Encouraging pedestrians to use over-bridges

A number of foot over-bridges have been constructed in Dhaka city. But most of these footbridges are hardly used by pedestrians. Ignoring the bridges and braving the running vehicles, many of them cross the streets risking their lives. Jaywalking has been identified as a major cause behind the rising number of road accidents in the capital. Even if there is a footbridge, people do not want to use it for many reasons. In most cases, footbridges are built in such places, where pedestrians do not want to land. Moreover, footbridges are very dirty and occupied by vendors, beggars and drug addicts. Sometimes people feel insecure to use these bridges at night for fear of muggers. Homeless people could be seen sitting and sleeping on several bridges. To make things worse, a number of bridges do not have adequate lighting. The infrastructural design of some bridges is not comfortable at all for pedestrians. They have not been constructed keeping our senior citizens and physically challenged people in mind.
The foot over-bridges should be cleared of all vendors, beggars and floating people. The authorities concerned should improve the over-bridges and encourage people to use them. The media should highlight the importance of their use by pointing out that accidents are happening every day due to jaywalking. The roads in our city should have signs for pedestrians not to jaywalk. Overall, this should be practised by all classes of people. Otherwise, the foot over-bridges will remain unused and accidents will continue. It is now time to make your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours conscious about the negative effects of jaywalking. Textbooks can be a useful tool in educating children about use of footbridge.

Muhammad Sultan Mahmud,
Student of Department of Psychology,
Dhaka College, Dhaka,
sultanmahmudofficial27@gmail.com