The bridges pedestrian They are structures built in urban areas with high vehicular mobility to guarantee the safety and security of people, but in many cases people are forced to expose themselves to crossing dangerous roads due to the poor condition of many, the fear of being robbed or in the absence of that alternative.
This is the case of Villa Mella where there are several pedestrian, but little used for various reasons. Charles de Gaulle Avenue, built in the mid-1990s by then President Joaquín Balaguer, is an expressway that at the time sought to remove vehicles from the city center and create a kind of ring road.
It was a work that, from its beginnings, only thought about vehicles, not pedestrians because it has been with the passing of the years, and after many community struggles that some of the pedestrianat a cost of more than twenty deaths and dozens of permanent injuries.
Approximately four years ago, a truck carrying a backhoe impacted the upper part of the pedestrian street on Charles de Gaulle Avenue near the Sabana Perdida highway and since then it has remained disabled because part of the platform was completely destroyed, leaving a gap of those two meters long and twisted beams.
Since then, the claims of residents of the Libertad, Lotes y Servicios, Sabana Perdida and other neighborhoods have not ceased. There have been many accidents in the place with fatalities and although the Emma Balaguer de Vallejo and Otilia Peláez schools and some schools are close to the place, as well as sports and play fields, the national and municipal authorities have not done anything.
Wilkin Suazo is a leader of the Neighborhood Council of the Libertad neighborhood and tells that one of his neighbors was run over trying to cross under the bridge because it is impossible from above and then he died.
“We are going to resume the fight because the Neighborhood Council is relaunching, the city council says it will resolve, but they never start… to the trustee and Public Works, please come to our aid and repair the bridge that we need.”
Edward Díaz, president of the Neighborhood Council of the Los Palmares neighborhood, reported that more than five years ago the arcade and the platform of a pedestrian bridge were placed on Charles de Gaulle with Duarte and Gregorio Luperón streets, but it does not have stairs.
The structure is luxurious because the hundreds of students from the María Teresa Mirabal school and the Hermanos Rojas Alou play can’t cross the busy road safely because the works left them half-built. Right next to it is the Santo Domingo Norte fire station and there have been several cases in which they have had to help injured people on the scene.
“We have done diligence, but they have not given us answers, we went on strike a month ago and they do not give an answer or have met with the community, we are many neighborhood associations that are in that situation.”
He affirms that many accidents occur frequently that affect kids and elderly people who do not have the mobility and dexterity to cross the road with the speed imposed by vehicles.
In another stretch of Charles de Gaulle, almost opposite the Brisas de Los Palmares sector, there is the Marañón I Basic School. kids every day they are exposed to crossing the road because there is no pedestrian bridge that allows them to go to the educational center safely.
The authorities of the educational center had to request a service from the school police that at the moment of entering the class and at the exit stop the traffic momentarily. The authorities have requested the construction of a pedestrian, but no case has been made. People have also been run over in this place.
The Hermanas Mirabal avenue pedestrian, in the Metro station of the same name, at the entrance of the National District there is a bridge that is in good condition, but it has the difficulty that at nightfall it becomes a place for the commission of robberies, it is also the bedroom of a homeless person who relieves himself on the bridge.
Some parents have to wait for their children and relatives at the location to avoid being mugged. Arturo Román, president of the Máximo Gómez Urbanization Neighborhood Council, said that before the bridge was covered with signs, but after pressing the town hall removed several fences that affected visibility.
“It was illuminated, but since they put fences there, it seems that they removed the lights and we have had this problem for more than a year. it was the same Town hall that put lights on it, we have sent letters and the last topic was that there were no lamps, but now that citizen security was discussed that the streets are going to be illuminated, in fact, we had a meeting with the Minister of Energy and Mines ( who lives in the area) and he promised that he will give us 44 lamps to illuminate the streets and of those four they will be placed in the pedestrian street.”
In Santo Domingo Norte they cry out to the Town hall and to the Ministry of Public Works to take care of the bridges pedestrian and thus achieve greater security for the municipes.
