Arterial roads in Chennai tough to navigate now, hard time for the residents!!
Posted on: 12/May/2023 9:22:04 AM
These days travelling from Ambattur to Koyambedu is not that easy because of the diversion in the traffic at Anna Nagar Second Avenue due to metro rail construction works. Normally, it would take just 25 minutes to travel from Ambattur to Koyambedu but now it takes between 45 minutes to one hour also. Many regular commuters have been finding it very tough now. The lack of traffic signals or traffic police personnel to regulate the traffic and minimise the traffic congestion has been a huge issue.
As the traffic in nearly 30 major roads in Chennai has been diverted now due to the metro rail works, the residents of Chennai have been finding it difficult to navigate now through the arterial roads. Point is that dense traffic has been diverted to the interior roads that are narrow because of parking and encroachments etc. In 3 important locations in Chennai like Anna Nagar, T, Nagar and in Mylapore, the traffic congestion is severe now.
The experts now feel that the traffic diversion must be done only after carrying out a study. The narrow roads must be re-laid and encroachments must be cleared and only then the traffic diversions must be carried out in the city. It must be taken into account that in T. Nagar vehicles from Pondy Bazaar to Nandanam are being diverted to Sivagnanam Salai having cars and street side stalls etc as encroachments.
It was revealed by a resident from T. Nagar that the residents were not consulted before taking a decision about the traffic diversion here. The encroachment of small streets here plus lack of traffic police personnel on the Venkatnarayana Road has made many vehicles take the wrong route.
The data from the Chennai police dept has made it clear that as manya s 1869 vehicles use Luz in the peak time and 1892 vehicles pass through Tirumangalam. Fact is that the same number of vehicles cannot be accommodated on the narrow road stretches through which the traffic has been diverted.
As per the Indian Road Congress norms, the carriageways in the multiple lane arterial roads must be 3.5m in width. The road width would have to be 14m if the road has 4 lanes. The traffic congestion occurs in the interior roads in Chennai having the road width of 6 to 7m. This has been the reason for traffic congestion around the Luz Church Road in Mylapore.
