Wednesday, June 10, 2009

70 New Foot Over bridges With Lifts And Ramps

After flyovers, it’s the turn of swanky foot over bridges (FOBs) across Delhi. By 2010 Commonwealth Games, Delhi roads will get over 70 FOBs for safe passage of pedestrians, the most vulnerable road users. If approved by the Delhi government, the next set of FOBs will have user-friendly features like lifts/escalators and ramps.

Public Works Department (PWD), which owns large section of road network in the capital, has floated tenders for 30 FOBs, which are part of the ongoing flyover projects in Delhi. All these are scheduled to be completed by June next year, sources in the department said.

"FOBs have been made integral part of these projects particularly the ones built to make crossings signal-free since pedestrians’ right has to be protected. It’s impossible for them to cross roads at these busy junctions. In many cases, the FOBs would be operational by the time all work related to these projects get completed," said a senior department official.

Besides, the flyover projects, PWD have also plans to float tenders for FOBs on busy roads, including Ring Road, Outer Ring Road and Mehrauli-Badarpur Road. The construction of more FOBs gains importance considering the fact that over 1200 pedestrians die in road accidents every year on Delhi roads.

All these FOBs will have escalators and ramps. PWD officials said that normally 6-7 months are required to construct one FOB and if there’s no hurdle, some critical stretches in the city may get FOBs by next June, three months ahead of the Games schedule.

Official sources also said that to make the FOBs look sleek and trendy, there are proposals to improvise the structures. ‘‘We have already built two such FOBs at Behra Enclave and Mangolpuri. The welding below the structures has been covered to give them a smarter look,’’ a senior official said.

Officiating PWD engineer-in-chief A K Sinha said that they have sent more design proposals for next lot of FOBs for which tenders would be invited later. ‘‘They need to get go-ahead from the government. It is premature to comment on them, but one thing is sure we want them to be more user-friendly and attractive,’’ Sinha said.

FOBs on major stretches

  1. Outer Ring Road | 5
  2. Trans-Yamuna | 7
  3. Ring Road | 8
  4. MB Road | 4
  5. Other stretches across city | 7

FOBs in conceptual stage | 8 30

more to be built with the flyover projects underway in Delhi

All FOBs to have escalators and ramps

The FOBs are likely to be ready by June 2010

Source: Times of India(Delhi Edition)

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