On either side of the road, bikes are parked, garbage is dumped and footpaths are missing. A continuous flow of traffic adds to the misery. That, in a nutshell, is Papanasam Sivan Salai for you.
Now, for those who don’t know, this road is part of a school zone. And, as you yourself can guess, this environment can hardly be called safe for children.
If you want to witness the chaos, visit the stretch during the closing hours of the schools in the locality. Schools vans, autos and cars block the stretch, leaving little space for those students who walk down to their homes.
Kala, a standard 9 student living on the adjacent street, every day puts herself through the risk of walking between stationary and moving vehicles to reach home. Asked why she doesn’t wait for the road to clear up, she smiles.
“I want to get home as soon as I can. It will take half an hour for the road to clear up. Who will wait that long?”
Adding to the trouble is vehicles parked on the road by residents of the area. “Without space for parking in their houses, many leave their cars and bikes on the road, contributing to the confusion prevailing around school closing time,” says Rashmi, a parent.
Now, construction work being carried out at the street is making things worse.
Sometimes, loads of debris are dumped on the road, taking up much of the space on this narrow stretch.
“The footpaths are hardly usable as vehicles block the approach to them. Children are forced to walk on carriageway, vying with school vans and autos for their walking space,” she adds.
As the Santhome High Road has a number of schools, parents coming to pick up their children use Papanasam Salai as a convenient place to park their vehicles to wait for their wards.
Now, can you picture the chaos?
