Deteriorations block traffic

The pedestrian bridge on Charles de Gaulle Avenue, in Santo Domingo Norte, remains out of service due to the deterioration in which the structure has been for approximately four years, without the authorities intervening to rebuild it.

Pedestrian bridges are built with the intention of protecting the lives of children and adults when crossing a highway or a road with high vehicular traffic, although this represents the opposite, due to the huge hole that affects its structure and pedestrian traffic, forcing people to risk their lives crossing the road.

A school, a park and a court are the establishments closest to the bridge, which means that those most affected by the poor conditions of the structure are students and athletes, who daily must cross the highway between vehicles at speeds of more than 30 kilometers per hour.

Although this newspaper published several works on January 24 and February 22 of this year, where the deterioration was exhibited, the residents reported not having seen any brigade of the Ministry of Public Works approaching the place.

“When a boy goes around then they are going to fix it or when that falls on a truck of those cross there is that they are going to fix it,” said Rafael Martínez, one of the residents of the area, who explained that after the nets were put more than two years ago to prohibit pedestrian access to the structure, The authorities “haven’t been there again.”

Daniel López, who is a physical education teacher at the school near the bridge, said that from the educational center they have already exhausted several resources with the authorities in order to solve the problem, of which they are directly affected, by the number of students who must travel on the highway, but their requests have not been met.

In addition to safeguarding the lives of the students, López said that with the arrangement of the same setbacks and accidents would be avoided, because so far this year two people have been run over by motorized vehicles traveling on the road.

The poor state of the bridge occurs 12 years after it was inaugurated in 2011, during the management of Francisco Fernández as mayor, work that the community spent years claiming its construction and now they are in the same situation of claims for its repair.

The pedestrian bridge, located on the Charles de Gaulle highway, near the Sabana Perdida sector of Santo Domingo Norte, is closed because of the severe deterioration it has suffered for several years, to the point that it has a huge hole in the middle.