Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad parliamentarian Atul Garg and local MLA on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for construction of a foot-over-bridge (FOB) at Vijay Nagar which will connect to the other side over the National Highway (NH) – 9, and the Delhi Meerut Expressway (DME), facilitating pedestrian movement.
“This has been a long-standing demand which has finally materialised. HT’s attempts to contact Arvind Kumar, the project manager from NHAI, for a comment did not elicit any response. “The NHAI had also erected grilles on the road dividers to prevent pedestrians from crossing to the other side. But some grilles were bent or taken away. This leads to risk and accidents. I will soon write to the concerned civic and development agencies to get them to add escalators to FOBs in the city as well,” the MLA added. The DME lanes in Ghaziabad start from UP-Gate and goes up to Meerut as a dedicated expressway.
On the occasion, Garg said the FOB will be built by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in one year at a cost of about ₹ 13 crore. The area at Vijay Nagar has high movement of pedestrians who take risks while crossing to the other side of the NH-9 and the DME, he said, adding that the FOB will help to prevent accidents on the NH-9 or the DME, while helping the pedestrians to cross over to the other side with ease. In Ghaziabad, the four outer lanes on each side are part of NH-9 while three inner lanes each side are dedicated to the DME. The NH-9 from UP-Gate stretches side by side of the DME lanes and goes further towards Hapur.
Meanwhile, Ghaziabad MLA Sanjeev Sharma said the area in the past witnessed several accidents as the commuters took risks by crossing the highway and the expressway lanes. So, the pedestrians try to find a way through the grilles… This FOB will also have two escalators on the Vijay Nagar side, and one escalator will be provided on the other side,” he said. He said that FOBs on the city roads do not have escalators.“This is why pedestrians do not use these FOBs and prefer crossing the roads afoot.
