Walking under this flyover is a balancing act

The Domlur flyover may be lauded as one of the better constructed flyovers in the city. However, those walking under the flyover beg to differ. With narrow uneven footpaths that abruptly come to an end, inadequate street lighting and so on, pedestrians wanting to walk under the flyover are forced to do a balancing act. The suspicious characters who sometimes lurk beneath the flyover only add to the problem.

Girija Ramachandran, a cook at a home on the Old Airport Road side of the flyover, has to walk on a narrow curve of a service road leading to Indiranagar to take a bus to her home in Banaswadi. Although it is a short walk, Girija has to tread carefully and make sure that vehicles coming in the opposite direction towards Old Airport Road do not crash into her. “We have to walk on the road itself as there is no footpath here. But because of the curve, drivers or riders often do not see people on the footpath and have to stop at the last minute when they see us walking on the road,” she said. Though there is a bridge along this road, it is closed towards the end. If it were open, people could have used it as a footpath.

A similar problem exists at the other side of the flyover. Pedestrians getting off the bus on Old Airport Road and trying to reach Inner Ring Road can walk only a short distance on the footpath. For walking along the remaining stretch of the footpath, pedestrians have to dodge vehicles speeding into the narrow service road leading to Inner Ring Road from Old Airport Road.

“I walk this stretch every day. We have to constantly be alert about vehicles coming behind us. Because there is no signal, vehicles are usually speeding. Most of us hurry along the road to reach the next stretch of the footpath which is a few feet away. However, this one doesn’t help because it is too narrow. Most people have to walk on the road itself,” said Mohana Priya, a systems engineer at Thompson Reuters.

“There is no proper means for pedestrians to move from Indiranagar to reach Old Airport Road or even crossing Old Airport Road. Some of the existing footpaths have been eaten over by companies for parking. Authorities seem to have forgotten that there is a class of people called pedestrians,” said Deepak V, a software engineer working at Yahoo! at Embassy Golf Link Park.
Deepak has a point: while the elevated road has street lights, under the flyover, where it is much needed, there is no street light and pedestrians have to make do with the light from the flyover.

Geetha Srinivasan, councillor, Domlur, said she has been getting complaints about the flyover for at least two years. She claimed that various recommendations made to the BBMP are pending. A skywalk has been recommended near Dell and near the second main entrance of Domlur, but work is yet to begin. “Skywalks have also been requested near New Horizon College in Doopanahalli and near the Domlur post office,” she said.