KARACHI: “I often wonder why these people gesturing for me to stop or slow down are even crossing the road with no zebra crossing when there is a pedestrian bridge overhead for their convenience right here. At least it will save them from getting run over,” a motorist passing by Submarine Chowk on Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-Zaman Road comments.

“This is a busy intersection. There are so many traffic constables around, too. And yet no one directs the people crossing the road to use the pedestrian bridge,” he observes. “After all what is it there for?”

“It is there for the advertisements, I guess. See, how nicely the level meets the eye,” jokes a wayfarer. “Okay, seriously, climbing up so many stairs on one side to climb down as many steps on the other seems like so much work, I’d rather just cross the road,” he says.

“Look, my knees hurt. The steps are too difficult for me,” says an elderly woman crossing the road at the Defence Bridge near the National Medical Centre.

“Pedestrian bridges are very useful, especially around hospitals and schools. But have you tried this one?” a young man near the same concrete pedestrian bridge decorated with grey, blue and purple tiles, inquires. “Because it has solid walls and not the steel girdles and grills, which one can see through, it provides plenty of privacy. Upstairs you’ll find homeless drug addicts curled up against walls while some ill-mannered people even answer nature’s call there. I for one have no desire to use the pedestrian bridges on Korangi Road for this specific reason,” he adds with disgust.

Still, some pedestrian bridges across the city are much needed and being used well, too. A while back when a tall container truck ran into the Karachi Port Trust pedestrian bridge outside Bahria College on Moulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road, leading to its collapse on that side of the road there was a huge problem for the students who used it for crossing the busy road. The three to four pedestrian bridges on Mauripur Road are also much needed as that road, too, sees a constant flow of heavy traffic, including container, tanker and dumper trucks.

Another pedestrian bridge is also needed at Nazimabad 7 Number on Nawab Siddique Ali Khan Road.

This city also has pedestrian bridges for exclusive use such as the yellow one at Garden where one side has access from inside the Institute of Business Administration’s city campus while the other is inside the headquarters of the All Pakistan Women’s Association.

It is also good to see some thought going into the ones on M.A. Jinnah Road and Sharea Faisal. There is one on M.A. Jinnah Road with green fibreglass shade over it for keeping out the sun or rain. But this is a very busy road with need for more pedestrian bridges. It is strange then to notice some on the road like the one near Rimpa Plaza taken down. But as one shop-owner at the Plaza automotive parts market shares, it was being used more as a stage during rallies and processions, which pass through the place often.

Meanwhile, a few on Sharea Faisal have a slope as well as stairs. The stairs may be used by pedestrians while the slopes are being utilised by motorcyclists and people on bicycles, too.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2015