After adding a dash of colour and 3D effect to zebra crossings to draw pedestrian attention, the city corporat... Read More

CHENNAI: After adding a dash of colour and 3D effect to zebra crossings to draw pedestrian attention, the city corporation is planning tabletop crossings which will allow pedestrians to cross roads along the same level of the pavements.

“The new zebra crossings catch the attention of pedestrians and thereby spread awareness on road safety,” said a corporation official. “Now, the tabletop crossing will increase visibility and make road crossing easy, especially for the elderly and the disabled.” Tabletop crossings double up as speed breakers. Vehicles will have no option but to slow down, while pedestrians can cross the road without stepping down from the pavement.

A few months ago, the corporation and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) studied roads which have a sizeable volume of pedestrians. They analysed the type of crossing each road would require to ensure pedestrian safety. One of the ideas was to have ‘refuge space midway through the breadth of the road. “Some of the medians on LB Road and RK Mutt Road are broken. Here, a refuge space has to be given for pedestrians to wait and cross the road,” said ITDP’s Chennai program coordinator Advait Jani. “A different contractor will have to do this job, so it will take some time for it to be implemented across all bus route roads.”

Civic officials said they are happy with the experiment of making zebra crossing colourful, and hence enthused to go ahead with the other plans. At most of the zebra crossings on bus route roads, the corporation has painted yellow lines between the white markings. All across the city, from north to the south, white and yellow lines run parallel to each other, imparting a 3D effect when seen from a distance. In some places such as on Lattice Bridge Road, the yellow lines have been painted like arrows. In a city where road infrastructure is designed to benefit vehicles, urban planners see this as an earnest effort to improve awareness on pedestrian safety.

This, however, does not seem to have made pedestrians excited. “I did notice the yellow lines, but it didn’t make me curious,” said Kumaravel who was waiting near a zebra crossing at Thiruvanmiyur. “If awareness is the idea, they should have constables to penalise people for flouting rules, be it a pedestrian or a driver.”

Officials said in the coming days the crossings, especially those near educational institutions, would get more artistic. After the northeast monsoon, we will choose a common pattern from kolam designs, psychedelic colours and 3D geometrical shapes. The chosen design will come up in front of Anna University on Sardar Patel Road, Dr MGR-Janaki College of Arts and Science for Women on Durgabai Deshmuk Road, Quaid-E-Millath Government College for Women on Binny Road, and Ethiraj College in Egmore.