‘Free footpaths before punishing jaywalkers’

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UNB, Dhaka :
Before being tough against jaywalkers in Dhaka city, experts suggest the city authorities to make footpaths clear
opportunities, mobility, public health and environment, they said suggesting rapid pedestrianisation in the city setting aside priority areas for pedestrians and traffic control on major roads and residential areas for creating the ground for action against jaywalkers.
“The first job is to make the footpaths clear. It’s the traffic police’s duty to help people cross streets. If they make all the zebra crossings clear and help pedestrians cross roads, then there’ll be no need to fine them,” eminent urban planner Prof Nazrul Islam told UNB.
Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, another prominent urban planner and vice chancellor of the University of Asia Pacific, said the hawkers and small traders who grab the city walkways to do business must be brought to justice aiming to make footpaths clear for walking. “All footpaths are illegally occupied as vendors are doing business by bribing the police,” he added.
On November 25, 2014, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) launched mobile courts in an effort to stop jaywalking and thus minimise road fatalities. The penalty for crossing streets without using footbridges or underpasses or zebra crossings is six months’ imprisonment or Tk 200 fine.
The drive came in the wake of growing road fatalities. A study of Work for Better Bangladesh (WBB) in 2011 shows that about 72 percent of people who become the victims of road accidents in the capital are pedestrians.
It says, only 18 percent of the city’s existing footpaths are suitable for walking while the rest remained unusable due to car parking, grabbing by hawkers, vendors, waste dumping and stockpiling of construction materials.
On February 26, 2012, the High Court asked the authorities concerned to take effective steps to make the city footpaths clear evicting hawkers and vendors so that pedestrians can walk through footpaths without facing any obstacle.
Despite the High Court directive, there has been no visible measure to free walkways from illegal occupants, making city highly unsuitable for commuters and thus contributing to jaywalking.
Prof Nazrul Islam, chairman of Centre for Urban Studies (CUS), Dhaka, said the Strategic Transport Plan for Dhaka prepared by the Ministry of Communications in 2005 has given emphasis on the right of pedestrians so that they can easily move using footpaths as about 80 percent city people travel on foot.
“Pedestrians must have the opportunity to walk on footpaths and the city corporations’ responsibility is to ensure that. Unfortunately the authorities fail to ensure safe and free footpaths….the Dhaka Metropolitan Police should penalise the authorities, not the pedestrians,” he said.
The urban planner stressed installing green signaling system and zebra crossing in all intersections of the capital so that people can pass through the zebra crossings safely. “The city over-bridges and underpasses must keep free from hawkers, vendors and advertisements,” he added.
Pointing at the frequent violation of traffic rules by private cars, Prof Nazrul Islam said when traffic police give red signal to stop vehicles, private cars stand on zebra crossings creating obstacle to pedestrians. So, the cars that violate rules must be punished first.
Around 108 kilometers walkways of total 163 kilometers in Dhaka city are occupied by street hawkers, vendors, and permanent and makeshift shops, according to official sources.
On top it, they said, grabbers have illegally occupied around 600 kilometers out of 2,300 kilometers of roads in the capital backed by influential politicians of different associate bodies of the ruling party.
WBB director Syed Mahbubul Alam who has been working to ensure the rights of pedestrians told UNB that about 37 percent of city people walk on footpaths as 95 percent people have to walk every day for one reason or another.

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