Skywalk to be built on Bengaluru airport road

A day after a college girl and a youth were fatally run over by a speeding tanker, civic authorities here Friday announced they would build a skywalk across the busy airport road for pedestrians' safety.

"We will soon build a skywalk at the Kempapura junction with escalators on both sides of the airport road to enable pedestrians cross over safely," Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner M. Lakshminaraya told reporters at the spot where the accident took place Thursday.

Arpita, 19, an under-graduate student of Sindhi College and Anand, 25, a junior executive in a private firm, were crushed to death by the killer tanker when she was crossing the road, while the latter was riding on a bike.

The tanker's driver, Yatish Babu, 28, was arrested and sent to jail.

The assurance to build the skywalk at the busy traffic junction came after hundreds of students, civic activists and residents from the locality blocked traffic and raised slogans against police and the civic body for the incident.

"As the airport road stretch after Hebbal flyover in the northern suburb is part of the National Highway (NH-7), we will build the skywalk after consulting the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), which is responsible for its maintenance," Lakshminarayana said.

With an elevated highway built over the road for vehicles ferrying passengers to and from the international airport, 20km away from the junction, traffic police have been unable to regulate their movement at high speed.

"Ironically, a pedestrian crossing has been earmarked just after the elevated highway ends from where vehicles from the airport or NH7 pass through at high speed in the absence of a speed breaker at the skewed junction," Sindhi College principal Prakash B. Nayak noted.

Till the skywalk is built, more constables will be posted at the junction to regulate the heavy traffic and facilitate safe crossing of pedestrians.