Dubai
The purpose of footpaths on roadsides is to ensure safety of pedestrians and avoid accidents.
“The footpath in Street 23, Muroor Road, Abu Dhabi does not fulfil the requirements of protection owing to overgrown shrubs that block the path for walking,” Nisar Ahmed, a bank employee and a resident of Muroor Road for the past six years, complained to Gulf News.
The pavement on Muroor Road extends for about two kilometres, according to the reader, before it leads to a jogging track along the Corniche and is “best approached by foot”.
For the purpose of aesthetics, flowery bushes have been grown along the footpath. By letting the shrubs grow way beyond, people struggle to walk as they try to evade the sharp twigs poking out.
Prakash Rajamanickam, another resident in the locality who has lived there for the past three years, said that this sort of a situation has never occurred in the past. He said: “The shrubs are always trimmed every month or once in 45 days. This has been a rare occasion where the shrubs have not been attended to in the past five months.”
Further, Ahmed claimed that it should not be very difficult for the municipality to cut the shrubs as there are two gardens in the vicinity, which are regularly maintained by the city.
He calls upon the civic authorities to act promptly and recognise the pavement to be “potentially dangerous” for walkers even though no accidents have been reported to date.
The Abu Dhabi Indian School is along the same road, which means the path is constantly used by children. Kirthana Menon, a resident of Muroor Road and the mother of a 15-year-old boy named Ajay, who studies in the school explains how hard it is to walk on the footpath.
She said: “My heart pounds till my son comes back home safe and sound from school. I worry because sometimes he has to step onto the road [because of the shrubbery], which has fast cars driving by, especially in the afternoon.”
Rajamanickam added that he accesses the footpath in the morning to go for a walk along the Corniche. “Seeing workout enthusiasts, children and sometimes even their parents using the footpath simultaneously is really scary. I sincerely hope that the concerned authorities take this matter seriously and do the needful.”
Ahmed concluded: “The jogging track along the Corniche that is accessed using this footpath also has many uncut bushes that makes the track narrow and small. This should also be considered,”
- The writer is an intern with the Readers Desk of Gulf News
