Traffic moving faster but pedestrians face hurdle

Lack of sign boards, zebra crossings and signals pose major problems to pedestrians on the Mumbai National Highway from Moosapet to Miyapur while crossing the roads.

A majority of the junctions on the road have been closed under an initiative taken by the traffic police to allow free flow of traffic and ‘U’ turns have been allowed around 100 metres away. This has led to problems for pedestrians crossing the road.

The traffic police has been writing letters to the National Highway authorities and GHMC to put up new signals for pedestrians and to paint zebra crossings along with vehicle movement lanes. But, there has been no move from either of them.

G. Satyanarayana Reddy from KPHB said that the pedestrians were having problems at Moosapet Godrej junction, Kukatpally Bus Stop, JNTU, Nizampet Junction and at Miyapur.

“The closure of junctions at some places has led to non-stop movement of traffic. Earlier, people would cross the road when red signal was on for motorists. Now, there is no chance,” he said.

Kukatpally traffic ACP Pagadala Ashok said that the GHMC has installed two signals for pedestrians at KPHB and Kukatpally bus stops.

“But, NH officials should arrange zebra lines. Once they paint zebra and other lines, we shall start the signals. We send proposals to the GHMC for installation of new signals at several junctions. Officials are considering our requests and they will install it soon. The two signals were installed with the MLA funds,” he said.