RIGHT OF WAY OF PEDESTRIAN

This in continuation of privious blog on Death trap opp. Churchgate Rly.Stn about people juming over road divider and risking their life The problem still contiues. What makes human to risk their life ?

I feel the complete system around Churchgate needs to be reviewed.

The road monitoring system around Churchgate railway station is I feel of extremely hardship for the commuters of public transport and for the pedestrian. It’s designed in such a way to give comforts to the vehicles users only. Nowhere in the system is the pedestrian in centre and of prime importance.

Everyday about 350,000 pedestrian make use of roads and footpaths around this particular area whereas against the numbers of vehicles are in few thousands.The hardship for railway commuters starts as soon as they come out of Churchgate railway station. Either they have to make compulsory use of the comparative narrow subways with shopkeepers and food stalls encroaching or walk till the end of barricade on Maharshi Karve Road to cross the road while going to office or going back to their home. The easiest and fastest way for the pedestrian including women, olden citizens who are in a hurry to catch muster or train back to home is to risk their and motorist and bus drivers life by hoping and jumping over the 2 feet barricade and to cross road as there is no convenient pedestrian crossing. The footpath just outside station is very narrow. Also the barricade on Veer Nariman Road and from Eros to Samrat Hotel makes road crossing difficult. Even for the bus commuters and BEST bus drivers, the bus stop outside station is dangerous because of heavy movements of railway commuters and taxi drivers. Few policemen try to control the human ocean in vein during morning and evening peck hours. It’s a waste of police force. How can we even expect for small policeforce to manage lakhs of pedestrian ?

Nowhere in world has police tried to stop pedestrians crossing the road as soon as signal lights turns red with the help of rope except in this region. The chances of persons tripping over the rope cannot be overlooked.

My request is please give prime importance to pedestrian who are in very large numbers comparative to vehicles on road. Recognize the Right of Way of Pedestrian to use road and footpaths. Make life easy for him. Why they should hop and jump and risk life while crossing road? Please make a convenient pedestrian crossing wherever required.. Till then as short term measure increase the height of barricade on Maharshi Karve Road. Please allocate a convenient place for taxi passengers to alight as at present taxies halt near station and cause traffic jam.

If necessary divert the private vehicles and taxies traffic near the railway station during morning and evening peak hours or let traffic police control the vehicles more effectively rather than Mumbai Police controlling huge crowd.