Foot overbridge in Egmore demolished to widen road

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, JULY 25. The Chennai Corporation has completed demolition of the Egmore Railway station foot overbridge on the Gandhi-Irwin Road, in a bid to make more carriageway. No new facilities are planned for pedestrians.

This follows a request from the Traffic Improvement Committee and representations from the traffic police, the Railways and the Transport Department, a civic body spokesperson said.

The overbridge was in a state of disuse for a long time and had become a congregation place for anti-social elements after nightfall and a public urinal. Though this menace has been there for ``a long time'' it was the traffic bottleneck along the stretch that prompted the authorities to decide on demolishing the structure. Now the road will be widened for smooth flow of traffic.

One of the main reasons pointed out by the authorities is that the structure served little purpose: people preferred to dart across the road than to use the foot overbridge. Another problem was the presence of a pedestrian crossing a few feet away. Apart from this, it was not possible to ensure that passengers who came from outside the city - unused to Chennai's concepts of pedestrian safety - used the foot overbridge.

According to Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority sources, the bridge was constructed by the Railways in 1980s for reorganising traffic near Chennai Egmore. The fund was sanctioned by the World Bank under the Madras Urban Development Programme (MUDP).

The authorities pointed to the problem in Chennai Central; where, despite the presence of a pedestrian subway and a board announcing a penalty for jaywalkers, many people including commuters dart across the road. ``A foot overbridge seems to have become redundant concept. We should think of innovative measures to make people adopt safer methods of crossing the road,'' says a civic body staffer, without identifying possible ones.

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