Residents renew call for a footbridge

Noida: Awaiting a footbridge that has been recently approved by the Noida Authority at the Sector 100-104 traffic light, the intersection has become accident-prone.
Residents of Lotus Espacia and Lotus Boulevard, the two nearby housing societies, claim their repeated requests for a speed breaker and the footbridge to link the two roads passing by the red light seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
As accidents are a common feature at the junction, residents of Lotus Boulevard have asked their children not to use Gate 4 that faces the red light for crossing.
“The red light is usually non-functional but even if it functions, it is of no help as people travelling from the expressway side hardly obey it. Those coming from Sector 107 side follow rules but this high speed traffic often leads to accidents,” said Devendra Singh, security supervisor at Lotus Boulevard.
Sunil Singh, Boulevard’s AOA president, said few days back, they had contacted the Noida Authority, demanding the speed breaker and start of work on the FOB.
“We were told that the Noida Authority is doing away with speed breakers as they cause more accidents. Our major demand was for a foot overbridge, which was approved by the Authority in December 2019 due to our prolonged persuasion with top officials as well as the local MLA, is yet to be met,” he said.
Additional DCP (traffic) Anil Jha told TOI that a small speed breaker can act as a temporary aid.
“There is a long-term plan to do away with all red lights and make use of an existing U-turn, along with making one more U-turn. The proposal had been sent in 2018 and surveys were conducted along with the Authority officials subsequently,” he said. Noida Authority’s general manager (civil) KK Agrawal said the acceptance letter for the foot bridge has been issued to the contractor “and designing work will start on the same after soil testing”.