Widening of the five-km stretch of Marudhamalai Road — from Lawley Road junction to Kalidas Theatre at Vadavalli — has hardly brought any cheer to those who travel to or from Vadavalli every day.
At various points on this stretch, the delay in land acquisition had rendered the widening inadequate. As a result, traffic snarls during peak hours are a daily problem.
The State Highways Department took up widening of the five-km road to a four-lane one in two phases and completed the works more than a year ago. However, land acquisition is pending on some portions.
According to an official of the department here, the road, which was earlier two-lane, has been widened into a four-lane one for the entire five-km distance. There was no proposal of land acquisition for 3.5 km from the Lawley Road junction to Mullai Nagar. The acquisition will be on both sides at some points of the 1.5 km stretch from Mullai Nagar to Kalidas Theatre. The land acquisition is waiting for land value approval. The acquisition process is likely to take three to six months. When it is over, the electricity poles and the drainage lines will be shifted. This will give space for parking of vehicles and make the road wider.
K. Kathirmathiyon, secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause, says the approval for land value is pending for quite some time now. The widening works were completed one-and-a-half years ago and if the land acquisition takes longer, the widened road will not remain new and will need maintenance works. There is no problem for the road users from the Lawley Road junction to P.N. Pudur. Beyond that, especially at three or four locations, only one four-wheeler can use the road at a time. If a bus stops at a bay, the other vehicles will have to wait behind. They cannot overtake the bus because of the median.
Medians are mandatory only on six-lane roads and not on four-lane roads. These should be placed only if necessary and not otherwise. Convenience of the public should be the priority. Though the road is wider, it does not benefit the public as parking is permitted on either side, land acquisition is yet to be taken up, and medians have been placed even in places where the road is narrow, he points out.
