Delhi’s Signature Bridge leaves black mark

NEW DELHI: Touted as a modern emblem for the city, the neon-lit Signature Bridge has instead turned into a commuting blackspot with eight fatal car accidents in 2019. It is a new entry in the list of the capital’s most notorious traffic points, such as Mukarba Chowk, Nirankari Chowk and Azadpur Sabzi Mandi. The road design changes at these spots due to the construction of flyovers or underpasses are being attributed for the rise in fatal accidents.
Police officers said that the city’s traffic blackspots were located mostly in north and northwest Delhi, with design changes of the arterial routes determined to be behind the drawbacks. For example, Nirankari Chowk, which has the two colonies of Sant Nagar and Bhalaswa Dairy on either side of Ring Road, became an accident hotspot after the construction of a pedestrian bridge. Due to its height, people hardly use the bridge, instead increasing the risks by crossing the road at surface level.

Last year, at the Signature Bridge, drivers travelling at high speeds could not control the momentum at the ramps that had sharp turns on the Timarpur side. In one accident, two bikers fell off the ramp and landed on the road below.
According to Piyush Tewari of Save Life Foundation, who studied some of the spots marked by the cops, black spots need to be seen not only from the perspective of driver behaviour, but engineering design faults. “As observed and documented by us, a large number of accidents take place across India due to poor road design and engineering. In many cases, enforcement protocols are entirely missing,” said Tewari. “Delhi government has addressed these issues at blackspots, and we expect it to do the same at the Signature Bridge.”
Meenu Choudhary, joint commissioner of police (Traffic), said that apart from booking rule violators, the traffic police were educating youngsters on traffic norms whenever they are flagged down. “At every location where a fatal accident takes place, the ACP and traffic inspector inspect the area and submit a report within 24 hours. This helps us understand the problem about that specific location,” Choudhary said. “We then even get in touch with civic authorities if there are changes that need to be made or better street illumination is required. Last year, we noticed a lot of pedestrian movement in some location, and consequently many accidents there. We asked for pedestrian bridges to be installed at such places.”