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Of Speed Breakers, Foot Bridges and Zebra Crossings

By A S M Nurunnabi
With the rapid growth of the city's traffic of motor vehicles and pedestrians, some imperatives have emerged for regulation of such traffic. Such Imperatives as speed breakers on city roads, foot bridges and zebra-crossings. form an important part of the city's road system.
Speed breakers on city roads are erected to control the speed of motor vehicles within certain limits at certain points of roads where consideration of safety and security of road users are important factors. For examples. speed breakers are raised at entrance and exit points of schools, hospitals, and other important organizations where safety requirements for passing vehicles and pedestrian traffic are of paramount significance.
Such speecibreakers form an important element in roads and highways engineering. The technical personnel in this line are well versed in the factors and circumstances which require the erection of speed breakers at the needed points on roads.
It has, however, been ob-served that erection of speed breakers on city roads does not always follow some basic principles. Sometimes the considerations of safety are so much overplayed that speed breakers are raised on a stretch of road which, in effect, considerably slow down the vehicular traffic.
leading at times to traffic Jams at peak hours, much to the inconvenience of travelling passengers.
It has been felt that speed breakers need to be conspicuously marked with white paint so that the approaching drivers of vehicles are alerted before approaching them Problems arise at night over such speed breakers when insufficient lighting of the roads make them almost invisible, causing Jolts to unprepared passengers. To avoid such exigencies, such markings may be done with Incandescent chemical paint making them visible at night
Some interesting examples of speed breakers are seen in some areas of the city, hi protected areas of some organisations. speed breakers are found erected with medium-sized boulders treating the passengers of motor vehicles and rickshaws passing over them, to big Jolts. At night, such jolts may cause unpleasant consequences.
Another interesting example can be seen near the FDC studio close to the Karwan Bazar rail gate. Here two tiers of speed breakers have been erected close to each other with a low valley between them. Passengers of vehicles negotiating them alone know the multiple jerks that they are subjected to from travelling over them.
There are about nine foot bridges located a different points in the city.
Their purpose is to facilitate the movement of pedestrians from one side of the road to another But. by and large, it has been observed that most of such foot bridges are not fully utilised by pedestrians even though they need safe passage across roads amidst heavy traffic movements. Many such pedestrians don't feel like taking the trouble to climb the stairs of the foot bridges. There are other Impediments: such foot bridges are mostly infested with hawkers of many kinds and also with beggars and vagabonds. Such diclncentives lead the pedestrians to face the hazards of passing through fast moving traffic on busy roads. The law enforcing agencies sometimes launch drives to clear obstructions on the foot bridges, but such operations usually turn out to be ineffective soon after the withdrawal of the enforcing personnel.
Similar is the case with zebra-crossings marked on roads to facilitate safe passage of pedestrians from one side of the road to another. But it has been observed that many pedestrians don't take advantage of the fa-cility and prefer jay-walking with the risk of road accidents.
Thus the whole scenario of metropolitan life looks somewhat incongruous when placed side by side with the abovenoted undesirable developments affecting the city's road discipline.