JOIN USDividers prove dangerous
As one walks down any road in the City, the black and yellow stripped road dividers are a common sight.
Their purpose is just this — to serve as a divider or a median to keep the vehicles from crossing lanes. But many in the City feel these dividers do more harm than good.
Many point out that it is an obstruction to vehicular movement and even pedestrians complain that it’s hard to cross the road with the dividers.
Regarding this a BBMP spokesperson says, “It is as per the instructions of the traffic police that we have placed the dividers. This is mainly to facilitate traffic bifurcation and lane discipline.” Metrolife spoke to a few people on what problems they face because of the divider.
Says Nilanjan, “The risk is very high when you cross these dividers. And especially when you have heavy traffic movement, this causes a lot of problem and triggers traffic congestion too.” Even Saloni, a student, thinks this causes a lot of inconvenience to pedestrians. “There are many places where these dividers are present but the pedestrians do not have a way to cross because there is no walkway at that place. In this regard, the government needs to have proper facilities in place to help the pedestrians,” she says.
She adds, “The government should construct more overbridges and underpasses so that pedestrians can cross without risking their lives. There are many places where there are these road medians which stretch for a kilometer or so and to save themselves the trouble of walking the distance, they just prefer to take the shortcut and jump over a fence. This poses a lot of risk because the vehicles go at high speed at such places.”
Says Reshin, “Nowadays the traffic is increasing. And because of dividers, reaching a particular place takes longer than normal. In most of the places, there are no U-turns given at the proper places. One such place is near Jayanagar 6th Phase towards Bannerghatta Road. The place where we usually used to take a turn has been closed and we now have to drive a kilometer before we can take a turn. I didn’t know that this divider was closed and I accidentally went over it and damaged my bike.”
He adds, “The road near Adugodi is under renovation. So the old dividers have been replaced by new ones. But when you travel at night, it is dangerous because the dividers do not have reflectors. And to worsen the problem they are not even arranged in an orderly fashion.”
And there are many other places in the City where this has caused problems to the vehicle owners. For instance, near the flyover, connecting Double Road and Residency Road, Shankara Mutt Road near Chamrajpet and many other places, the drivers are at a risk of running over the makeshift dividers.