Islamabad—Billions of rupees have been spent in the capital on the construction of new avenues and highways to facilitate smooth traffic flow but little attention is being paid to the safety of pedestrians by erecting overhead bridges at the busy roads. The residents of federal capital are demanding the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to install pedestrian bridges at various points on busy Faisal Avenue, 9th Avenue, 7th Avenue, I.J Principal road, Islamabad Highway and Kashmir Highway.

According to Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP), many people lost their lives and get injured while crossing highways in absence of necessary pedestrian bridges.

Hundreds of people daily cross the busiest and speedy Faisal Avenue by putting their lives in danger. However, worse situations can be witnessed during peak hours at various locations when students, women and elderly people keep waiting for long time to safely cross the roads. Under a strategy to control traffic, Islamabad Traffic Police closed several crossings and provided U-turns ahead of that to ensure smooth flow of traffic.

Though the experiment proved a success to great extent, but at the risk of pedestrians’ lives as it is really unsafe for them to cross the road through fast-moving traffic.

No doubt, signal-free intersections on tentative basis received extensive applause from the commuters plying between the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, but the facility proved irking for the pedestrians who have not been provided safe crossings. The public transporters also add to pedestrians’ woes, which do not bother to reduce speed to provide way for pedestrians.