MANILA – The Ortigas Center, a bustling central business district in east Metro Manila, hosts many leading business establishments, large shopping malls and well-known restaurants. Its roads are wide, ideal for moving vehicles through an area.
For pedestrians, however, getting across a wide, busy, high-speed road can be daunting.
With thousands of people visiting Ortigas to get to their workplaces and residential condominiums, three new pedestrian overpasses were recently installed in areas where there are many people. The goal: to help maintain the safety of the pedestrians and provide convenience to the public when moving across the area.
Two of the new pedestrian overpasses are located along Onyx Road corner Ortigas Avenue and Ortigas Avenue corner F. Ortigas Jr. Road where several companies are located. The busiest overpass among the three is the one located near Robinsons Galleria, the flagship mall of Robinsons Land Corporation.
Robinsons Galleria is located near two high-rise office towers, the Galleria Corporate Center and the Robinsons-Equitable Tower, and three deluxe hotels. With the new pedestrian overpass, employees and guests can easily and safely reach the other side without having to cross a road where speeding vehicles pose a risk.
Professionals – especially car owners – who work in nearby office buildings across the mall are also being encouraged to use the pedestrian overpass. With hundreds of cars roaming the streets of Ortigas area, parking spaces can be easily filled up. But with the new pedestrian overpass, car owners can easily park at the mall for a fee and use the overpass to conveniently get to their offices.
Besides connecting the public to their workplaces, the pedestrian overpasses also have features that add to the convenience of people. For one, landscaped plants that provide not just aesthetic value but also filter pollutants and dust, and lower the temperature from the outside.
The pedestrian overpasses also shield people from the sun and rain.
There are bicycle wheel ramps so that cyclists can easily wheel their bicycles as they walk up the overpass and avoid the hassle of carrying them up the stairs.
The newly-installed pedestrian overpasses were inaugurated last month with Pasig City Mayor Robert Eusebio gracing the event together with the members of the Ortigas Center Association Inc. (OCAI) headed by Tommy O, OCAI President.
