Donning bright white lab coats, students dart across the road in front of St. John’s Medical College and Hospital in Koramangala. Lunch time has descended upon them and they are making a dash for the canteen on the other side of the road. The median is stunted. Just a facile jump would do. Given this, a foot overbridge (FOB), 50 metres from the hospital gate, stands ignored. Hunger pangs could readily be blamed for this risk-taking behaviour. But while on a full stomach, students have brushed the FOB off curtly as if it were an uninvited guest.

Built around five years ago for the benefit of students and patients, this facility near Gate 2 of the hospital remains underutilised, being used only when the medical students take the stairs to film short videos. Even a slightly older segment of the pedestrian population gives the FOB the cold shoulder. And seniors give the FOB a wide berth, as it is divested of its lifts.

There is no dearth of underused FOBs in Bengaluru. On the same road, three kilometres away in Jakasandra, an FOB is a picture of desertion and neglect, its metal walkway displaying signs of corrosion.

Sometimes, FOB-avoiding behaviour is fuelled by the lack of lifts or escalators or the lack of faith in them, when they are functioning. In a post on Instagram earlier this year, the Bengaluru City Police described the harrowing experience of a 50-year-old woman being stuck in a lift near the skywalk at Nagarabhavi bus stand in Chandra Layout police station jurisdiction.