The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reprieve for Maduravoyal residents soon

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Friday, Jan 02, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reprieve for Maduravoyal residents soon

K. Lakshmi

Portion of road-widening project will be completed in a few weeks

— Photo: S.S.Kumar

END TO DAILY BATTLE? Motorists vying for space with heavy vehicles on the narrow stretch of Poonamallee High Road near Maduravoyal may soon get a respite with the road-widening work under way.

CHENNAI: Residents of Maduravoyal, who have been enduring bumpy rides on the stretch of Poonamallee High Road between Koyambedu and Maduravoyal, may soon get a reprieve as a portion of the road widening project will be completed by mid-January.

Long waits in inching traffic on the stretch has been a daily ordeal for motorists for over four years now. It takes about an hour and a half to cross the stretch, which otherwise is a 20-minute ride.

Residents said that besides the vehicles from adjacent localities such as Nerkundram and Koyambedu, several heavy vehicles used National Highway-4 road, which connects the city with Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai.

V. Rajan, a resident of Nerkundram, said that though traffic congestion had decreased slightly on the stretch in the past few days, the vehicle pile up still remained unpredictable, particularly during rush hour. Manoeuvring the stretch was a tough task during nights as the arterial road was bereft of streetlights.

Motorists had to vie for space on the narrow road or ply on the bumpy stretches due to the delay in the road widening work taken up by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), he said.

However, the work, which was resumed a month ago, had come as a ray of hope for the residents.

A police personnel regulating traffic said that it was difficult to handle heavy traffic on the dusty stretch. Though the personnel had been provided face masks, not many used them as they were “uncomfortable to wear.”

Once the projects were completed, the problems pertaining to choking traffic would be minimised, he said.

Several Metropolitan Transport Corporation staff members were deployed on the stretch between Koyambedu and Maduravoyal to regulate traffic for free movement of MTC buses.

D. Jeganraj, an MTC trainee deployed on the junction near the upcoming grade separator as part of Tambaram and Maduravoyal bypass project, said that about 10 trainees had been deployed for manning the traffic on shift basis. “I help commuters board the buses on the busy junction during rush hour. I regulate the traffic after 11.30 a.m. to facilitate movement of buses without much delay,” he said.

A NHAI official said that the work to widen a portion of the road would be completed in a fortnight. The Rs.49-crore four-laning project between Maduravoyal and Koyambedu covering a distance of 4 km would be completed by March. Work on the other side of the stretch would commence once the Chennai Metrowater laid pipeline transporting water from Chembarambakkam water treatment plant to the existing network in Koyambedu.

A survey was under way to convert the stretch of Poonamallee High Road from Maduravoyal to Sriperumbudur as either six or eight lane road, the official said.

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