RISKY AFFAIR

Kalpana Square

Rasulgarh Chawk

Vani Vihar Square

Near Unit-I Daily Market

Ashok Nagar

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 6: After her second accident in five weeks, 51-year-old Sabita Mohanty, a school teacher, decided to do away with her two-wheeler and walk to work. She had hardly imagined being a pedestrian in the vehicle-crazy city of Bhubaneswar would turn out to be a nightmare.

The first day she walked to school, it took her 10 minutes to cross the road at Janpath. There was a mad rush of vehicles from Master Canteen Square. By the time she had crossed half the road and was standing on the divider, she found herself flanked by two wheelers and even cars that were crossing from one lane to the other by jumping over the divider. The next day, she was back on her scooty.

Retired government employee and a diabetic Nadia Bihari Swain had been advised to take morning walks. But when he set out from his home around 7am and ventured onto the main road, he saw things he had earlier ignored as a motorcyclist, one of them being the absence of a pavement. Inching close to the road could prove fatal for him with a heavy flow of vehicles on the highway. A demoralised Swain dropped his plans of walking and bought an expensive treadmill that barely fit in his tiny apartment.

An unprecedented rise in the number of vehicles in the capital city has made life tough for pedestrians. Most pavements across the city have been encroached upon or are at the same level as the roads. For instance, the footpath stretching from Master Canteen to Rajmahal Square is full of betel shops, vendors, basket weavers, cobblers and billboard stands.

Rituparna Bhaskar, an engineer, said: “Even the traffic police here focus more on vehicular movement and not on people as such. Although they have been successful in enforcing helmets and seat belts, not much has been done for walkers. Even on the few pavements we have, you can find only motorcyclists.”

Even zebra crossings seem to offer little respite to pedestrians. Much before the light turns green, many drivers often come onto the line in a hurry to race off. To make matters worse, the zebra stripes on most roads are either absent, dimly visible or disappear midway at major junctions like Vani Vihar, Acharya Vihar, Jaydev Vihar, CRP Square, Fire Station, Khandagiri, Airport-Forest Park Square, Raj Mahal, Kalpana, Ram Mandir and Housing Board Square. The story is the same at Rasulgarh, Kalinga Hospital Square, Damana and Ravi Talkies Square.

The lack of a zebra crossing on the busy NH-5 has forced teachers of the Srimad Bhagwad Gita Vidya Mandir near ISKCON temple to flag down vehicles for the students to cross the roads safely.

“Crossing the road has become a risksy affair. You walk with the fear of being run over and getting killed. We badly need a foot overbridge,” said a teacher. Students and teachers of educational institutes, such as BJB College (with the Bhubaneswar court on the opposite side), Ramadevi Women’s College, Guru Nanak Public School, and Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1 that lie between Rupali Square and Lewis Road, are most prone to accidents while crossing the road.

“We don’t have proper traffic posts at busy junctions like Raj Mahal and Vani Vihar square to instruct pedestrians to cross the roads. The traffic police should allow at least 30 seconds for pedestrians to cross over,” said Sarthak, a management student. On the other hand, many pedestrians consider using the deserted subway connecting Unit I and Unit II as wearisome.

A police official said Roads and Buildings (R&B) under the Public Works Department is responsible for painting the stripes once a year or as and when required.

“We have pavements at all busy areas. We are collecting fines from those who overstep the zebra crossing and those driving their two-wheelers on the footpaths. We would soon have a foot overbridge at Jaydev Vihar,” said the official, adding pedestrian deaths were rare in the city.