Thiruvananthapuram: East Fort skywalk by March next year

Thiruvananthapuram: PWD minister G. Sudhakaran will lay the foundation stone of the ambitious skywalk project of the city corporation at the busy East Fort on Thursday. Mayor V.K. Prasanth at a press conference here on Monday said that the skywalk, equipped with lift to facilitate pedestrians, would be completed by March 2020. He said that the project has got the mandatory clearances from various departments including Kerala Road Fund Board, Archaeology Department and KSRTC.

It is learnt that around 40 pedestrians have died at East Fort while crossing because of lack of pedestrian amenities including a skywalk or subways.  The sophisticated L-shaped skywalk has been designed in the shape of a fort to ensure that the structure wouldn’t deface or disrupt the view of the heritage structures including the Fort.

As per the plan, the skywalk would start in front of the Gandhi Park extending to the bus parking bay to Kovalam and connecting to the bus stop from Kovalam.

 “We are planning for a subway at East Fort and the skywalk is planned accordingly so that it's accessible for the pedestrians coming out from the subway which is being planned underneath the Gandhi Park,” said the Mayor.

He said that the civic body has directed the traffic wardens to ensure the school children and other pedestrians use the foot –over-bridge.

 “Currently the Foot Over Bridge in front of the Cotton Hill School is not being used by students. We have directed the traffic warden to ensure that the children use the foot overbridge which has an exit point at the school,” said the Mayor.

Mayor said that the work of the foot overbridge in front of the St Marys School would be finished by next month. The foot overbridge project is being implemented by Sun Infrastructure Ltd under its CSR initiative.