Urban News

HindustanTimes 15.02.2010

Not only will it be comfortable to walk on but the structure will be appealing to the eyes too.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has come up with an aesthetically designed foot-overbridge (FOB) that will be the first-of its kind in Delhi. The civic agency has started construction work for the FOB on Africa Avenue Road whose design will resemble suspension bridges.

This type of bridge has cables suspended between towers.

“We have designed this FOB on the lines of suspension bridges which is quite uncommon for FOBs. Not much attention is paid on the aesthetic side while constructing FOB’s but in this case we spent a lot of time deciding on the design,” said a senior NDMC official.

The civic agency had appointed Delhi Integrated Multi-Model transit System as the consultant for the project to carry out a detailed survey of pedestrian and vehicular traffic for this location.

“The survey pointed out that there was huge volume of traffic on this particular stretch and a grade separator was needed. We therefore decided to construct a FOB. The area around it will also be improved by us,” added the official.

Work has already begun on the site and the cost of the project is Rs 4 crore.

The FOB will be fitted with four escalators. NDMC had given a nod for construction of foot overbridges, underpasses and subways in its area, which will approximately cost Rs 75 crore.

The approval was granted at a meeting of the Council held in January.

As per the project, three FOBs would be constructed at Africa Avenue, Mother Teresa Crescent and Park Street. Two subways would be constructed at Mandir Marg and Shahjahan Road while two underpasses would be built at Baba Kharak Singh Marg and Shantipath after the Games.

All the three FOBs will have different designs with the one at Africa Avenue being the most different.These foot-over bridges have been designed to encourage pedestrians to use them to crossover.

“We had no space constraint at Africa Avenue which is why we could construct such an FOB there,” added the official. FOB at the Mother Teresa Crescent has cable design and will cost around Rs 3 crore while the one at Park Street will be equipped with escalators and elevators too and will cost Rs. 3 crore.

“Work has begun there too and this will be fitted with escalators too,” said the official.