Not a smooth walk: Underused foot overbridges in Bengaluru pose safety risks

Students wearing bright white laboratory coats, St. Darts in front of the road in front of John Medical College and Hospital. Lunch time went down to them and they make a line for the canteen on the other side of the road. Median dwarf. It just makes an easy leap. Considering this, an foot overbridge (FOB), which is 50 meters away from the hospital door, is ignored. Hunger Pangs can be easily accused of this risk -taking behavior. But when it was in a stomach, the students broke FOB as if they were an uninvited guest.

This facility, which was built for the benefit of students and patients about five years ago, is used only when the medical students receive the stairs to film short videos. Even a slightly older segment of the pedestrian population gives FOB cold shoulder. And the elderly, because they are disposed of from their elevators, gives the FOB a wide quay.

There is no less used fobs deficiency in Bengaluru. On the same road, a fob, three kilometers away in Jakasandra shows signs of corrosion of a metal gate, a picture of a desertion and neglect.

Sometimes, phobic-running behavior is fueled by the lack of elevators or escalator or lack of faith when they work. Earlier this year, an article on Instagram, Bengaluru City Police, a 50 -year -old woman’s regular police station jurisdiction of the Nagarabhavi bus stop at the Skywalk near the elevator talked about the sad experience. A citizen, Bengaluru City Police Namma 112 called the emergency line to search for help. Iron wires on the elevator should have been drawn to save the woman.

According to Bangalore traffic police, a total of 4,784 traffic accidents were reported in 2024, where 893 people were killed and 4,052 people were injured. It contained pedestrians that were killed more than 200 than that. Did some of these pedestrians lost their lives, because did they decide to pass the road without a nearby FOB help because they were not only user -friendly?

The majority of humanity wants to spend minimum energy while trying to achieve their goals. This includes an umbrella realism and FOBs. Even a phob that comes with elevators or escalators seems to be uninvited if it needs to cover an important floor to reach it. Therefore, the location of a FOB (if not more) is as important as user -friendly, physical properties.

Fobs and Skywalks are usually recommended as indispensable aids for safe pedestrian crossing on any subway, but the reality of the ground proves otherwise.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) border 82 of the 82 sky is under different completion stages. According to data shared by the BBMP traffic engineering cell, most of the facilities that emerged after 2007 were given an elevator or escalator. Numerous operational FOBS has been built under public special partnership and comes with close -circuit television camera and guard.

However, the current situation of these Skywalks leaves a lot desired. Authorities say that the great difficulty they face includes vandalism actions in elevators. The repair of this kind after each action is a preventive cost for repetitive expenditures of the maintenance of these facilities.

More infrastructure projects

A large part of the budget proposed by BBMP turned to infrastructure development – Skywalks, which are included in them. Can various stakeholders participating in such projects in mind the behavioral information from the design stage to increase the protection of these facilities before they are called to build new Skywalks?

Prakash Sharma, the founding partner of a behavioral strategist and 1001 stories, says the difficulties of using Skywalks are behavioral, socio-cultural and holistic.

Overbridge at the Cantonment train station in Bengaluru. Experts say that the civilian body should make a particular sky popular or some of them should examine why they are avoided. | Photo Loan: J. Allen Egenuse

If these three can be understood better when designing such infrastructure projects, it can increase design, user experience, increase security and promote desired behaviors.

Prakash talks about how Skywalks can increase the safety of pedestrians on a subway, and says it is easier to make people use them rather than comfortable.

“For example, Skywalks should be aesthetic. Steps should not look scary when designing such a project. Especially the escalator walls from top to bottom – openness signals security.

He suggested that Skywalks be attracted to be attractive. “Finally, people have interpreted something in the context – a fob does not make sense and will be used in the wider context of good walking areas and wide walking areas and useful.

In the past, the Ugly Indians fixed black spots near the Old Airport Road, Marathhalli and Skywalks, who went to Domlur.

Design Standards

Together with Deepesh Agarwal, Arun Pai, who launched #blrfootPath Challenge in 2024 to rating the paths in the city and mark any problem, positioned a FOB as a component in the larger pedestrian infrastructure and a solution created for faster and safer traffic movement.

“In many regions, FOBS prevents the path and the area under the fob stairs is used as a mini casting”
Arun Pai#Blrfootpath challenge

“We want civilian authorities to turn pedestrians into the focus of our planning.

A good path should not be ruined by building a phob. “In many regions, FOBs block the booties and the area under the FOB stairs are used as mini casting, Ar says Arun.

Authorities from the traffic engineering cell say that a necessity analysis was performed with more than one stakeholder, including traffic police and citizen groups before deciding instead of a Skywalk. On many arterial roads where Skywalks are provided, civilian administration brings to a point to increase the height of the media to prevent people from narrowing along the way.

GBA suggestion

Joint Police Commissioner (Traffic) Karthik Reddy said that Bengaluru traffic police offered an offer to the Great Bengaluru Authority (GBA) for the construction of 78 sky in the city. These places are defined according to areas where pedestrians take 20 to 30 seconds to pass the road. At such points, vehicle traffic usually stopped 200 to 300 meters and causes congestion. The idea behind the proposal is that building Skywalks in these special places can reduce traffic slows caused by pedestrian transitions.

Some of the main areas where the traffic police proposed Skywalks are the ITPL road, the outer ring road, the old airport road from Vartur, the main road of Whitefield, the Cubbon Road, the Kanakapura Road, the Sarjapur Road, the Bannerghatta Main Road, Dr. Rajkumar Road is located as well as other key areas.

However, Redy said that the role of the traffic police is limited to determining problematic areas and that they did not deal or propose Skywalks’ engineering or design aspects. The concerns are definitely the blockage caused by pedestrian transitions and how to potentially alleviate with the construction of the sky.

GBA officials, including one of the Zonal engineers, said the proposal is not yet in discussions. Biri One of the reasons includes financial results for the GBA, who prefers to build such projects through a public-private partnership (PPP) model to build Skywalks.

Level transition

But is Fobs really the best option for pedestrian crossing?

Employees on transportation and development policies are to use transitions that are strictly stuck to safety -enhancing measures that pedestrians can pass through a path. Because climbing a fob or metro’s stairs, aside from the elderly, it requires an extra effort for young and agile.

“We shouldn’t look for a car -centered development.S. Velmurugan Head, Traffic Engineering and Security Department, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi

Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, Chief Scientist and Head of Traffic Engineering and Security Department, S. Velmurgan, traditional Skywalks and FOBs last longer, so the class or speed table or table top transitions should be preferred, he says.

“We shouldn’t look for a car -centered development. If a city cannot provide a desktop transition, at least go for half a subway, Vel says Velmurugan and new cities to think about half a meters. In this, the design aims to have to climb a long staircase by reducing the number of steps. It says it is affordable because the elevators contain periodic maintenance and there is no need for an ongoing cost of running them. However, this design did not start significantly.

Velmurugan also states that the mumbai examples are praised for the use of such facilities. He also refers to the example of the face of the Private Public Partnership (PPP) model.

Experts say that the civilian body should make certain Skywalks popular or some of them should examine why some of them are avoided. Popular facilities in a field due to location or bad facilities should be adjusted to include the possibilities preferred by pedestrians. Strengthening or replacing Skywalks should be tried if an option should be tried. Fobs may result in a great necessity.

(With the additional inputs of Rishita Khanna)