If not pedestrians, then who is allowed to use a pedestrian bridge?
A pedestrian bridge which pedestrians are not allowed to use! It might sound like a joke, but it is not, as witnessed by citizens of Zagreb who every day cross the pedestrian bridge over the Sava River which connects the streetcar terminal and the Kajzerica neighbourhood. A sign banning pedestrians was recently put on the bridge and no one has yet removed it, reports Večernji List on June 22, 2016.
To make the situation more absurd, on the other side of the bridge there is another sign showing that the bridge can be used by both pedestrians and cyclists.
“The sign banning pedestrians was put recently, and we thought that someone had stolen it from somewhere and put it there just for fun. It is not clear why would they ban pedestrians from crossing a pedestrian bridge, although, given its condition, I am not surprised that they did”, commented Mario Trnovšek from Kajzerica, who uses the bridge several times a day, mostly crossing it in the middle because he thinks it is safer there.
Other pedestrians also generally stay away from the fence, and they have been especially careful during the last three months, since a half a metre hole appeared in the bridge. “They closed the hole quickly, but they just covered it with metal plates. I do not remember them ever doing something more serious on the bridge”, said Mirela Antolić.
Actually, it was 1939 when the last construction workers left the bridge, and despite various promises of reconstruction in recent years, the bridge which is used by thousands of people every day has still not been renovated.
The renovation project does exist. It was made a year and a half ago by architect Branko Silađin. The City Assembly accepted the offer of the Vijadukt construction company, which wanted to donate material and workforce for the reconstruction of the bridge. However, the City claims that the project has not yet been completely defined.
“Until the renovation project is fully defined, sidewalks on the bridge are closed for pedestrian traffic, but they can still use the middle of the bridge, which is structurally fine”, explained Dinko Bilić, the head of the City Office for Spatial Planning. When exactly will the pedestrian bridge across the Sava River “look just like the one in London”, as it was announced in the City Assembly in March by Mayor Milan Bandić, is not known. Given the experiences with Zagreb’s city authorities, we will have to wait for a while.
