The deadliest times for pedestrians are at night between 7pm and midnight @KenyanTraffic

Pedestrians will continue chancing their lives on the busy roads as the multimillion-shilling footbridges are anything but safe.

Hawkers, street families and motorcycle taxi (boda boda) operators have taken over. Today, one is just as likely to get knocked down on footbridges as the pedestrian crossing the road below.

And if they are lucky to make it from one end to the other unscathed, they’ll have to hop and skip over hawkers wares, making what should be an enjoyable exercise stressful.

Hawkers who spoke to the  claim economic hardship had pushed them to take up sidewalks and footbridges to maximise sales. Because of high human traffic, they said footbridges are prime locations.

For the boda boda operators, the footbridges are hard-to-resist ‘highways’ that substantially cut their travel time. In a city of perpetual gridlocks where their services are highly sought after by those keen on arriving at their destinations in time, they said the footbridges are come in handy.

“The footbridge is a short cut to the other side of the road and I also avoid getting stuck in traffic,” said a boda boda rider at the Cabanas crossing.

But it is not just boda boda operators and hawkers that pedestrians have to consider. Street families have completely turned some of the facilities into their homes and reports anyone who walks into their ‘territory’ is attacked. Muggers too have turned others into dens.

Pedestrians have particularly learnt to give the footbridges around Muthurwa market and the Machakos country bus station a wide berth.

Besides risking an arm and leg on footbridges, pedestrians have also displaced from sidewalks by small traders including motor vehicle garages and furniture shops, especially in areas such as Buruburu, Umoja, South B, Lang’ata, Imara Daima, South C. They are forced to fight for space with vehicles on roads.

Boda bodas and matatus also use the pedestrian walkways in an attempt to beat traffic jam.

According to a recent study, the pedestrian safety problems starts from the infrastructure design.

The joint study by the NTSA and the National Police Service estimated 35 percent of road traffic deaths in Nairobi occur within 20 metres of matatu stages, highlighting infrastructure design flaws around these sites as well as rogue behaviour by drivers and lack of safety consciousness among pedestrians.

“This staggering number is a call for action,” the report urged.

“Developing a better understanding of how to regulate and enforce matatu flows, and driver and pedestrian behaviour, while at the same time improving the infrastructure at these sites will be required to guide policy action”.

Indeed, a spot check of the matatu termini in Nairobi shows that many pickup and drop-off points around the city lack safety features such as designated crossing points or protected sidewalks — exposing pedestrians to harm or even death.

A recent study conducted at Kenyatta National Hospital dubbed the Pattern of Pedestrian Injuries in the City of Nairobi urged new thinking where pedestrian crossing will become part of road designs.

It called for a shift from the vehicle-focused designed to a more inclusive vehicle and pedestrians’ model.

“Seventy percent of pedestrians were hit while crossing the road, 10.8 percent while standing by the road and 8.1 percent while walking along the road with the highest proportion of pedestrian crashes occurring on Saturdays (25.5 percent) and Sundays (16.7 percent) ,” observed the study.

The researchers noted that footbridges had not improved road safety but perpetuate a culture of careless speeding and driver negligence.

Their study revealed that in Nairobi , traffic accident deaths and injuries are concentrated between 5am and 8am and between 5pm and 11pm, representing 53 percent (deaths) and 50 percent (injuries) of the total.

The deadliest times for pedestrians are at night between 7pm and midnight when 41 percent of pedestrian deaths occur.

This article first appeared on www.nation.africa