Following complaints from residents and motorists about glaring lights in hoardings affecting visibility and endangering the safety of motorists, Corporation Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy inspected the “hoardings in dispute” along the Race Course road on Friday.
Mr. Ponnusamy along with Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu, Executive Engineer Sugumaran and other officials, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) councillor P. Rajkumar and representatives of Race Course and Neighbourhood Associations inspected the nearly 350 hoardings.
The complaint was that the hoardings are heavily illuminated and are directly in the line of sight of the motorists. Public have also pointed out that the picture of women in the hoardings were distracting the attention of motorists.
Talking to The Hindu , Mr. Ponnusamy said that all the hoardings were located between the walking track and the road. Each hoarding measured one meter width and two meter height and had six tube-lights for illumination. Now, the advertising agency has been asked to reduce the number of bulbs in each hoarding. Mr. Ponnusamy said in the first place, reducing the numbers of bulbs is expected to bring down the glaring light relieving the motorists substantially. Similarly, for a particular stretch of one furlong, the authorities have asked the advertising agency to remove the hoardings to the extreme left i.e., from the present location (between the road and the walking track), closer to the wall. Authorities will study the effect of both the measures and based on public opinion, a decision will be taken to implement it.
As the Corporation had already entered into an agreement for letting the space for hoardings, these measures would be taken to reduce the problems for motorists for the time-being until the licences for the hoardings come up for renewal.
