The city district government of Karachi, under the leadership of Mustafa Kamal, built a few signal free corridors in the city to improve the flow of traffic. These corridors may have added to the convenience for motor vehicle owners, but they have added to the misery of the poorest section of this city’s population.
The poorest people of this city, who have neither cars nor motorcycles, use buses, minibuses and coaches to travel. When these people get off public transport anywhere on these signal-free corridors, they risk their lives for crossing the roads. The roads have become ever more life threatening in the absence of signals. Five years ago, people used to walk to a signal to cross the road. Now there are none. What to do except risking lives.
When somebody pointed out this state of affair when Kamal was still the city Nazim, it was said that “pedestrian bridges are being built which will solve this problem.”
First, the number of pedestrian bridges is still too little. These bridges are located at more than one and a half kilometers of each other at some places. Which means if somebody is standing between two bridges, he has to walk 750 meters to get to a bridge and cross the road. What brilliant city planning! Isn’t this!
Second, pedestrian bridges are no use to the elderly and the sick and the disabled. How can you expect a 60-year-old woman to climb so many stairs to get to the other side of the road? How can you expect a pregnant woman to do this?
The result of these pedestrian bridges is that thousands of people put their lives at risk everyday to cross the ever-dangerous roads of this city. Many have already lost their lives. Would that Kamal had worked on something better.
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