October 07, 2008	Tuesday	Shawwal 7, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 6: More than six hundred citizens die in road accidents in the metropolis every year while the casualty rate of pedestrians is higher than that of many other major urban cities of the world.

According to city district government officials, 1.6 million vehicles and five million pedestrians come on roads in the city on a daily basis. Of them one pedestrian dies and two others get injured in accidents every day.

In Karachi between 600 and 650 people die in road accidents every year while the casualty of pedestrians amongst them is about 325.

This makes a ratio of almost 1:1 between pedestrian and non-pedestrian casualties, which is higher than that of many other developed countries.

In America 50,000 people die every year in road accidents while the casualty of pedestrians amongst this is just 5,000 that makes a ratio of 1:5 between pedestrian and non-pedestrian casualties.

In order to bring down the number of fatal accidents the city government is working on a pedestrian bridge project, envisaging both accident prevention and remedy.

So far the city government has installed 34 out of 45 RCC and steel pedestrian bridges in different parts of the city while the rest were built by other agencies.

The National Highway Authority has installed two pedestrian bridges on Mauripur Road; the Defence Housing Authority has installed four pedestrian bridges on Korangi Road; the Pakistan Steel has installed one bridge on the National Highway and the Cantonment Board Faisal has installed one bridge on Sharea Faisal and another one on Dalmia Road.

On the signal-free Corridor-I, the city government has installed seven bridges between Sharea Faisal and Habib Bank Chowrangi.

Besides, a pedestrian bridge removed for the widening of Sir Shah Suleman Road will soon be installed at the Sui Gas head office near the Civic Centre.

Besides, two companies will install 10 and 13 pedestrian bridges on a built, operate and transfer basis in different parts of the city, respectively.

DDO Transportation and Communication S. Saeed Akhter Rizvi told PPI on Monday that under a city government pilot project two pedestrian bridges – one in front of Bait-ul-Mukarram Mosque and another in front of Hassan Square – had been installed in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town.

The model bridges were user-friendly, he claimed, saying that if the design was approved 12 bridges of the same design would be installed by the Pakistan Steel Fabricating Company Limited on the signal-free Corridor-II.

Plan to build 100 bridges

He said the city government was also working on a plan to install 100 more pedestrian bridges in the city.

For building 50 pedestrian bridges, the district development working party of the city government has forwarded a PC-I to the provincial development working party. The installation would start once the proposal was approved, he added.

When asked, he said: “We take accident data from traffic police and after analysing the severity index of accidents, traffic volume, pedestrian count and other relevant indicators our department identifies the critical locations in the city.”

The National Highway Authority would install three pedestrian bridges, traffic signals and bus shelters on Mauripur Road as proposed by the city government.

He said 13 different agencies having their own area of jurisdiction were working in the city.

The city government could not install bridges in others’ jurisdiction though the agencies like KPT and Cantonment Board Faisal had been suggested where the bridges were required.