Pedestrian bridges diminish mobility
MANY Philippine cities are not very walkable. One indicator of poor walkability is the number of pedestrian bridges one would find. And yet, a building boom in pedestrian bridges persists in many cities and towns all over the country.
Pedestrian bridges are often displayed by officials as an accomplishment, but they should be scrutinized more carefully. Pedestrian bridges are not only a poor option for spending public funds; they are also often associated with worsening road safety, reduced mobility and increased criminal activity.
Basically, a pedestrian bridge exemplifies the priority given to car users in the use of road space over people who rely on walking or cycling to get around. Every time a pedestrian bridge is built, it improves the mobility of people in cars and diminishes the mobility of those on foot.
Even though city streets are filled with cars, the reality is that most urban Filipinos use public transport, or walk or cycle, to get around. When pedestrian bridges are built, public funds are used to improve the welfare of a small, affluent minority of motor vehicle owners at the expense of the vast majority of Filipinos who walk or cycle by necessity or choice. In the Greater Manila Area, only 12 percent of households own cars, and outside of metropolitan areas, that percentage is even smaller.
Usually, a pedestrian bridge is built to eliminate a ground-level pedestrian crossing so that cars can keep moving on a road without having to stop for people crossing it. Some considere this as an accomplishment, but the reality is that the net impact on society is negative.
A pedestrian bridge forces people on foot to walk a far longer distance to cross a road so that people in cars can travel faster. They end up encouraging car use while discouraging the most sustainable travel modes: walking and cycling. And they immobilize the most vulnerable segments of the population.
Pedestrian bridges cost a lot more than an atgrade crossing, and require more maintenance. A Mexican nongovernmental organization, Liga Peatonal (Pedestrian League), has estimated that a pedestrian bridge costs twice as much to construct as a “world-class” safe pedestrian crossing with proper signs and traffic signals, and costs 2.4 times as much to maintain. Instead of pedestrian bridges, more funding should go into improving groundlevel pedestrian infrastructure: speed bumps, midcross refuge islands, sidewalks, better signage, painted zebra crossings and automatic walk signals.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), one of the global thought leaders in the field of sustainable mobility, has analyzed the impact of pedestrian bridges in an Oct. 1, 2019 article titled “Pedestrian Bridges Make Cities Less Walkable. Why Do Cities Keep Building Them”: “Pedestrian bridges are, on average, much longer than at-grade crosswalks. Compared to an average street crossing of 11 meters, the typical pedestrian bridge spans 103 meters due to [the] ramps and stairways needed to elevate bridges above street level. These bridges are typically built with steep stairs or steep sloped ramps, which are particularly challenging for people with disabilities, children, the elderly and anyone carrying goods.”
Often, the justification for a pedestrian bridge is to improve the safety of pedestrians, to give them a safe way to cross the road. But the outcome is often just the opposite; those who deserve protection are even put in greater danger. “Forcing people to climb stairs discourages passage, and when these areas are poorly lit, as is often the case, women, in particular, feel even more unsafe and vulnerable. These structures are designed in a manner that is inconvenient for pedestrians, dangling them above speeding cars, and reinforces a mentality that drivers can drive as quickly as they would like,” the ITDP wrote.
In the past, pedestrian bridges are claimed as contributions to road safety. The reality is that pedestrian bridges have been associated with much higher rates of road crashes. In Mexico City, 27 percent of crashes involving pedestrians and hitand-runs were within 300 meters of a pedestrian bridge. In Nairobi, 43 percent of such crashes were within 500 meters of a pedestrian bridge.
The “hostile design” of pedestrian bridges encourages many to just cross at-grade, without the protection that a normal pedestrian crossing would provide. Those unable to climb stairs are left with no option but to cross the many car lanes to get to the other side. In a study
of the Indian cities of Pune and Erode, the ITDP found that 85 to 95 percent of pedestrians continue to cross at-grade despite the availability of pedestrian bridges. Drivers also tend to be less aware of pedestrians when they are passing near pedestrian bridges because they assume that no pedestrians would cross the road.
Ground-level pedestrian crossings are perfectly possible, even on major roads in cities. A good example is Gangnam Road, Seoul’s equivalent of EDSA. The road has five lanes in each direction. Even with street-level pedestrian crossings every few hundred meters, the traffic there flows smoothly. After Gangnam Road was redesigned to be pedestrian-friendly, it became one of the leading centers of economic activity despite being one of the most heavily traveled corridors in South Korea. In the same way, our major roads, such as EDSA and C5, should be managed as urban roads, rather than expressways. They should adopt street- level pedestrian crossings, integrate the entire traffic signaling system and manage vehicle speeds to promote road safety.
The lesson is that pedestrians, rather than cars, should be the priority on any road, with a pedestrian bridge considered as a last resort. The “default” option on any urban road should be an at-grade pedestrian crossing. Any suggestion of a pedestrian bridge should invite careful scrutiny and detailed justification.
Each time you look a pedestrian bridge, whether on foot or in a car, please know that it serves no purpose except to let cars go faster at the expense of those without them. Such public investments have no place in any city, especially one where the vast majority are not car owners. It is time for national and local officials to look carefully at how much of their transport infrastructure budget is going into pedestrian bridges and to end further investment in these monuments to diminished mobility.