Crossing the Corniche road, especially in the stretch between Emiri Diwan and Qatar National Theatre round about is getting increasingly difficult these days for pedestrians. A view of the usual traffic snarl along the route in the evenings: PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam

By Ramesh Mathew
With Doha witnessing a sharp rise in the number of vehicles, the residents are feeling the need for foot over-bridges at key locations on some of the busy roads in the city.
Regular walkers along different stretches of the over 5.5-km Corniche, starting from the Doha port entrance, are appealing to Ashghal (Public Works Authority) to construct foot over-bridges at various places along the route.
Many of them say it is becoming impossible to cross the road along the stretch especially in the evenings due to heavy vehicular traffic.
“The less said about crossing the road over the weekends the better,” says Ashraf Majeed, who is a long-time regular on the Corniche for his evening walk.
Majeed, an engineer by profession, started using the stretch for his walks more than 15 years ago.
He says there has been a remarkable rise in the last four to five years in the number of people who come to the Corniche for a walk in the evening. And they struggle to find a place to park their cars along the stretch as well.
Some of the people said they use the paid car parking in Souq Waqif before starting their routine walk along the Corniche. “It is next to impossible to find parking along the Corniche in the evenings, as there is a sharp increase in the number of visitors to the area,” said an Asian woman.
She complained that it was extremely difficult to cross the Corniche stretch between the Emiri Diwan and Qatar National Theatre roundabout.
Iqbal, another regular, echoed similar feelings. “I could find families returning to Souq owing to their difficulties in crossing the Corniche road,” he said.
The Indian expatriate said there were also others who altogether have avoided coming to the Corniche for walks because of the same problem.
And those who use the manually operated traffic signals along the stretch for crossing the road compound the woes of the drivers who are as it is caught in the unending traffic snarls.
There should be a minimum of three or four user-friendly ramp -like foot over-bridges along the route, the residents said. As in some cities of the region, major companies should be encouraged to build such over bridges to meet the public requirements, said one of them.   
Residents say that, as a first step before erecting any foot over-bridge along the Corniche, the Ashghal authorities should encourage the public to use such scarcely-used bridges as those between the VIP roundabout and Ras Aboud over bridge.
“Thus they could highlight the necessity of people using foot over-bridges in an ever growing city as Doha,” said Donald, a Western expatriate who has been a long-time resident in the region.
Donald, an instructor with a professional institution, said it was high time the city’s public work authorities developed such necessities as foot over-bridges to facilitate easy movement of its growing population.
The Englishman said some cities across the world have even introduced “surprise” incentives for the users of such facilities as foot over-bridges for crossing the road.
He said local authorities can emulate similar steps to inculcate the culture of safe use of roads by the public.