People stay away from pedestrian bridge due to safety concern. TRANSIT: Surprise, surprise.

TRANSIT took note of this article detailing concerns about a pedestrian flyover near the Hang Tuah LRT & Monorail interchange.

Apparently the flyover has been occupied by vagrants and is unlit at night – discouraging people from using the flyover and instead, risking their safety crossing the street below.

TRANSIT is saddened and disappointed but we can say that we are not shocked at all that this is happening.

People stay away from pedestrian bridge due to safety concern
By BAVANI M
bavanim@thestar.com.my

THE pedestrian walkway and bridge at Jalan Dewan Bahasa and Jalan Hang Tuah which was built to allow pedestrians to cross Jalan Hang Tuah to get to the monorail station and the Hang Tuah LRT station has now become a den for drug addicts and vagrants.

Due to safety concerns, the public has stopped using the bridge due to the presence of these seedy characters who seem to have made the bridge their “home”.

“The people are afraid of using the bridge especially at night. It has now become a sleeping place for vagrants and I have seen drug addicts loitering on the bridge,’’ said Chen Kee Tuck, a resident of Hang Tuah flats.

“There have been many cases of snatch thefts on the bridge. The people are afraid of using it,’’ said the 71-year-old.

Another resident of Hang Tuah flats resident K. Raman, 58, said even the schoolchildren were afraid of using the bridge in the morning.

“Parents have to escort their children and even the young women going to work have stopped using the bridge,’’ Raman said.

To avoid all these dangers, the residents are left with no choice but to dash across the busy road to get to the other side, not realising that their “safe” choice is also putting them in danger.

“The volume of pedestrian traffic is quite high here and if people are afraid to use the bridge; there is a high chance of them risking their life or losing their limbs by dashing across the road,’’ said Bukit Bintang PPP head Sathiah Sudakaran.

A check by StarMetro yesterday revealed many disturbing signs. It was obvious that the bridge has become a haven for these dodgy characters because there were no lighting on it.

All the fluorescent bulbs were not working as vandals had stolen the wiring for the lights and in some spots the lights were even missing.

Wires were jutting out from corners while pipes were hanging loose at some corners.

The garbage bin on the bridge was burnt to the core and bottles of cheap liquor was found strewn all over the bridge.

At the dark corner at the bottom of the bridge; a vagrant has turned the dingy spot into his “home”.

“At night the place is so dark that we just do not want to take any chance of using it,’’ said Suraya Ahmad who lives nearby.

“Why take the chance, there have been robberies here in the past two months,’’ said the mother of three.

Concerned residents sought help from Federal Territory People’s Progressive Party (PPP) chairman Datuk A. Chandrakumanan, who made a visit to the bridge to check its condition as well as talk to the residents.

“It is a nice bridge, however, development of any sort is pointless if there is no periodic maintenance carried out to ensure the projects and qualities remain first class,’’ said Chandrakumanan.

Chandrakumanan proposed that Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) install shutters to block access to the bridge from midnight to 6am to prevent vagrants from using the bridge to sleep.

“This would also solve the vandalism problem and help DBKL save money in the long run.’’ he said.

Chandrakumanam added that his team had tried to seek help from the National Drugs Agency (AADK) to help rehabilitate the addicts; but were told that there was not much AADK could do as the addicts were foreigners.

“We are not going to stop there; we’ll try the immigration next,’’ he said.

The 3m wide and 80m long bridge was opened on Jan 2010.

The bridge is part of the RM91mil project comprising two flyovers, a pedestrian walkway and traffic lights system at Jalan Dewan Bahasa/Jalan Hang Tuah/ Jalan Maharajalela/Jalan Loke Yew to help ease congestion in the area.

TRANSIT Says:

Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated? More importantly, why does this keep happening to us here in Malaysia?

Build new infrastructure, forget about maintenance. It is the national curse.

And to make things worse we inconvenience one significant group (pedestrians) for the sake of another significant group (drivers … or should we say, the cars that control them).

With all the talk about how great this network of pedestrian walkways was going to be, how much did we ever hear about plans to ensure that the walkways were safe, comfortable and monitored by the local government?

Our transport planners & urban planners may allow themselves to be impressed by overhead walkways in places like Hong Kong but they need to remember this very important detail: Flyovers & subways are not natural for humans. We belong at ground level where we have safety, visibility & convenience.