Not a smooth walk: security risk under the foot overbridge in Bengaluru

The bright white lab coats, the students dart across the road in front of the hospital in St. John’s Medical College and Kormangla. Lunch time has landed on them and they are making a dash for the canteen on the other side of the road. The middle stunt is done. Just a convenient jump will be. In view of this, a leg overbridge (FOB) (FOB) was ignored at a distance of 50 meters from the hospital gate. Pain of appetite can be easily blamed for this risk -taking behavior. But on a full stomach, the students have brushed the fob with Kurt as if it is a uninterrupted guest.

Constructed about five years ago for the benefit of students and patients, this feature has decreased near Gate 2 of the hospital, only when medical students take the stairs to film the stairs to film the stairs. Even a small section of the pedestrian population gives FOB cool shoulder. And seniors give FOB a wide berth, as it is divided by its lifts.

There is no shortage of phobes in Bengaluru. On the same road, three kilometers in Jakasandra, there is a FOB desert and a picture of neglect, its metal walk routes display the signs of rust.

Sometimes, FOB-riding behavior is given fuel due to lack of lifts or escalators or lack of confidence, when they are working. Earlier this year, in a post on Instagram, Bangalore City Police described the experience of a 50 -year -old woman being trapped in a lift near Skywalk at the Chandrabhvi bus stand. A citizen demanded help to the emergency helpline of Bangalore City Police Namma 112. The iron wires at the top of the lift had to come out to save the woman.

According to Bangalore Traffic Police, a total of 4,784 road accidents were reported in 2024, in which 893 people were killed and 4,052 people were injured. Out of this, more than 200 killed pedestrians were involved. Did some of those pedestrians lose their lives because they decided in favor of crossing the road without the help of an FOB nearby, just because it was not a user friendly?

A vast majority of humanity want to spend minimal energy to feel its goals. It is a umbrella truce and it also covers fobs. An FOB, even which is complete with lifts or escalators, looks uninterrupted, if someone has to cover a lot of land to reach it. Therefore the location of a fob matters more (if not more) as its user friendly, physical features.

Fobs and Skywalks are often proposed as unavoidable AIDS for safe pedestrian crossings in any metro, but the ground reality is proven otherwise.

Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palik (BBMP) has out of 82 skywalks, in different stages of completion of more than 20. According to data shared by BBMP’s Traffic Engineering Cell, most of the facilities coming after 2007 were provided with lift or escalator. A good number of operational FOB is created under a public private partnership and a close circuit comes with television camera and watchman.

But the current position of these skywalk leaves a lot to be desired. Officials say that the major challenge facing them involves vandalism on lifts. After every such task, repairing them is a avoidable cost for recurring expenses to maintain these features.

More infrastructure projects

A vast part of the budget proposed by BBMP was directed to the development of the infrastructure – Skywalk in them. Fresh tenders are called for the construction of the new skywalk, do various stakeholders involved in such projects take into account the insight related to the design phase to increase the conservation of these features?

Prakash Sharma, a behavior strategist and co-founder of 1001 stories, says that challenges in using the skywalk are behavior, socio-cultural and overall.

If these three can be better understood when designing such infrastructure projects, this design can increase user experience, improve security and help promote desired behavior.

Talking about how Skywalks can increase the safety of pedestrians in a metro, Prakash says that it is easy for people to use them, if there is comfort, then instead of safety.

“For example, the skywalk must be aesthetics. This type of project should not look to scare the steps when designing. Ascelator walls, especially on the walkway, should not be covered from top to bottom – protection of signs of openness. No one requires clear kuhini to inform the public that there is a FOB located within a certain distance.

He suggested that access points were made leading to the skywalk appeal. “Finally, people explain things in the context – an FOB does not understand and will be ignored in the absence of enough running locations and usable, decent pavements,” Says Prakash.

In the past, ugly Indians set black spots near the old airport road near Skywalk, Marathahalli and Domallur.

Design standards

Arun Pai, who launched the #BLRFOOTPATH ​​challenge to rate pavements across the city in 2024 with Deepesh Aggarwal, is a solution designed for a fob and fast and safe traffic movement as a component in the infrastructure of large pedestrians.

“We are asking the citizens to focus on the pedestrians to focus their plan. Today it is one later and the fob is even bigger. Phobe is made after the pavement, so we need standards while designing such features so that such infrastructure projects do not block the movement of people.”

A good pavement should not be wasted by creating an FOB. “In many areas, fobs block the pavement, and the area below the fob stairs is used as a mini-dump,” Arun says.

Officials of the Traffic Engineering Cell say that a requirement analysis is performed with several stakeholders, including traffic police and civil groups before deciding at the skywalk. On many arterial roads where skywalks are provided, the civil administration also creates a point to increase the height of the middle so that people can be prevented from darting across the road.

Proposal to GBA

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Karthik Reddy said that the Bengaluru Traffic Police has submitted a proposal to the Greater Bangalore Authority (GBA) for the construction of 78 Skywalks across the city. These places were identified on the basis of areas where pedestrians currently take 20 to 30 seconds to cross the road. At such points, the traffic of vehicles often has to stop from 200 to 300 meters, causing congestion. The idea behind the proposal is that constructing a skywalk at these specific places can reduce traffic recession due to pedestrian crossings.

In some major areas where the traffic police have suggested that ITPL Road, Outer Ring Road, Worthur to Old Airport Road, Whitefield Main Road, Cuban Road, Kanakpura Road, Sarjapur Road, Bannerghatta Main Road, Dr. Rajkumar Road is included.

However, Reddy clarified that the role of the traffic police is limited to identifying the problem areas and they do not handle or suggest engineering or design aspects of the skywalk. Their concern is a rush caused by strict pedestrian crossings and how it can be potentially reduced through the construction of the skywalk.

GBA officials, including one of the zonal engineers, said the proposal has not been in the discussion yet. “One of the reasons for this is that the creation of the skywalk is the financial implication for the GBA, which prefers to build such projects through a public-private partnership (PPP) model. In a PPP model, private partners are responsible for funding, design and construction. Since the proposals are still in an initial stage, it is still not a level where it is not yet a place where design or construction decisions are.”

Grade crossing

But is it really the best option for pedestrian crossing?

People working on transport and growth policies see that the best possible way in which pedestrians can cross a road, using grade crossings that contain security measures that are firmly tucked. For, climbing a fob or a metro stairs also asks for an additional effort for young and agile, let the seniors alone go.

S. Velmurugan, Chief Scientist and Head of Traffic Engineering and Safety Division, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi says that it takes longer to cross the traditional skywalk and FOB, so grade or speed table or table top crossings should be preferred.

Velmurugan says, “We should not seek vehicle-focused development. If a city cannot provide a table top crossing, go for at least half the subway,” says Velmurugan and requests to consider half the subway from new cities. In this, the design tries to go around the problem of climbing a long flight of stairs by reducing the number of steps. He says it is cost effective because lifts involve periodic maintenance and do not require a continuous cost of running. However, this design has not taken it in a major way.

Velmurugan also cites examples of Mumbai where the use of such features is commendable. He also cites the example of Surat where the private public partnership (PPP) model has worked.

Experts say that the civic body should regularly study factors that make some skywalk popular or why some are avoided. Those facilities that are not popular in an area due to location or poor features should be replaced to include features that are in favor of pedestrians. If retroping or shifting space of the skywalk is an option, it should be tried. After all, phobs can remain a major requirement.

(With additional input by Rishita Khanna)