The median divider on a large stretch of EM Bypass has to be covered with an iron fence on both sides to prevent indiscriminate crossing by pedestrians, police have told the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), the agency implementing the New Garia-airport Metro link.
The police want RVNL to fence the median divider along an 11.3km stretch of EM Bypass, between Chingrighata and Garia, as the New Garia-airport Metro viaduct passes over the divider.
In a letter to the RVNL authorities, the police have said it would be prudent to have both sides of the divider covered with iron railings. The stretch of the Bypass between the Ruby rotary and the concrete bridge in Garia should be taken up first, the police have said.
Makeshift bamboo railings now stand on the median divider below the Metro viaduct along this stretch of the Bypass. At several points, pedestrians walk across the divider to move from one flank of the road to another.
“Pedestrian movements account for close to 40 per cent of the accidents on EM Bypass. There is a tendency among a section of pedestrians to cross the thoroughfare around some of the key intersections, including the Ruby rotary and Patuli crossing and the ones in front of Metro Cash and Carry and Highland Park,” said a senior officer of Kolkata police.
“Unless both sides of the median divider are fenced with iron railings, pedestrians cannot be prevented from crossing the road.”
With the Metro Railway planning to launch the service along the 5km stretch between New Garia and Ruby, police officers apprehend that a section of commuters will try to cross the Bypass by removing semi-permanent structures wherever they can. This can be disastrous on a high-speed corridor where the vehicle count has been rising rapidly.
Several officers said the spot around the floating market off EM Bypass in Patuli has emerged as a hangout zone.
“There is a tendency among some of the people who gather there to walk across the Bypass. Besides the fear of accidents, such crossovers tend to slow down traffic,” the officer said. “Pedestrians also tend to cross over in significant numbers near Metro Cash and Carry. It can only be stopped if an iron fence is erected on both sides of the median divider.”
The challenge to control similar crossovers along Diamond Harbour Road has prompted the police to ask the RVNL authorities to set up steel railings on either side of the median divider on the thoroughfare.
The immediate trigger was the death of a Class II student of Barisha High School in August near Behala Chowrasta.
The scale of violence that followed the child’s death — police vehicles and the office of the Diamond Harbour traffic guard were set on fire — led the police to find ways to stop indiscriminate crossing of roads on foot.
RVNL officials said work on the median divider of the Bypass has begun and will be completed in phases. “The median dividers on the stretches near Satyajit Ray and Kavi Sukanta Metro stations have been taken up for fencing,” said an RVNL official.