The civic authorities will not allow any more pedestrian overbridges to come up, having woken up to the fact that the structures only serve the interests of advertising agencies.

The realisation dawned on the civic body following a “utilisation assessment” of the seven pedestrian overbridges in the city — two each in Sealdah and Ultadanga and one each in Gariahat-Ekdalia, Park Circus bridge No. 4 and Dhakuria.

The ones at Ekdalia and Dhakuria are owned by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and the rest by Calcutta police and the CMDA.

To ensure that pedestrians are not inconvenienced, the civic authorities have decided to construct mini-flyovers at busy crossings.

“Instead of allowing more pedestrian overbridges, we have decided to construct mini-flyovers. We are in touch with Jyotindra Moitra, an associate professor of traffic management at IIT Kharagpur,” said municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay.

Citing an example, Bandyopadhyay said traffic management at the Sealdah-end of AJC Bose Road would have been a lot better had there been a flyover at the Moulali crossing, instead of an overbridge in front of NRS Medical College and Hospital.

“The flyover would have lessened the traffic on the road, leaving enough time for pedestrians to walk across the road,” an official pointed out.

The overbridges, in any case, are rarely used as they are not pedestrian friendly. They also encroach on the pavements and block the city’s skyline,” said Dipankar Sinha, the civic director-general in charge of town planning.

Just as in the case of foot overbridges, the civic body has decided to grant display rights to advertising agencies if they agree to share the cost of constructing the flyovers.

According to an estimate of the civic civil engineering department, a mini-flyover would cost anything between Rs 15 crore and Rs 25 crore.

“We are ready to enter into a cost-sharing agreement with the CMC for mini-flyovers in return of display rights,” said Dilip Chatterjee, of outdoor advertising firm Selvel. The Rs 1.75-crore pedestrian overbridge at Gariahat, he said, has been financed by Selvel.