Chennai: Traffic moved at a crawl from Thursday afternoon along the OMR stretch from Taramani to Madhya Kailash and along Sardar Patel Road in front of IIT-M with the signal at the right turn to Gandhi Mandapam Road the major chokepoint.Whoever passed through the area was delayed by up to an hour. Traffic police blamed the gridlock on an MTC bus breaking down. But over the past few weeks the area has seen frequent traffic snarls for a variety of reasons.Nearly 1.5 lakh vehicles pass through Madhya Kailash junction every day and it has become a chokepoint. One reason is that south-bound traffic from Sardar Patel Road is now diverted on to OMR and then funnelled through a u-turn near VHS hospital to join traffic from Taramani to take a left turn at Madhya Kailash. It doesn’t help that the roads in the area are poorly paved. Regular commuters say it now takes up to 45 minutes to cross the stretch against about five minutes earlier.“It takes 15 to 20 minutes just to get from Madhya Kailash to the Cancer Institute,” said Amar, a regular on the route. One of the reasons is that there’s a scramble to get on to the flyover in front of the IIT, with vehicles in the left lanes veering sharply right, blcoking the flow of traffic. And the signal near the Cancer Institute takes longer now to turn green for those turning right to Gandhi Mandapam Road. This is because there is more traffic turning right from Gandhi Mandapam Road towards Guindy. And that’s because of traffic diversions on Anna Salai—from Teynampet to Saidapet—to facilitate the construction of a new four-lane elevated corridor. Motorists take Cenotaph Road at Teynampet and are supposed to turn right on to Chamiers Road and rejoin Anna Salai at Nandanam. But many prefer to take the Moopanar flyover from Cenotaph Road on to Gandhi Mandapam Road to reach Guindy. So the signal in front of the Cancer Institute becomes a major chokepoint. Commuters blame the traffic police for not being proactive in managing traffic. “Most of the time, the officers are just seen standing at one corner glued to their mobile phone. No one steps on to the road to actually manage the traffic,” alleged Chinnasamy, an autorickshaw driver. “We refuse rides to these areas because of bad traffic,” he said.Commuters demanded better roads, more efficient regulation, real-time traffic monitoring, and better planning by the city’s traffic enforcement authorities. Assistant commissioner of police, Mylapore, A Julius Christopher, stated that minor traffic adjustments have been implemented, such as relocating the bus stop near CLRI and shortening signal cycles, to improve traffic flow. “More small-scale modifications would be introduced when needed,” he added.MSID:: 121344286 413 |