It is free for all at the Bibikulam junction where two narrow roads meet P.T.Rajan Road-Rathinasamy Road (Income Tax Office Road) in close proximity. Kulamangalam Road that connects Meenakshipuram and Kulamangalam converges into PTR Road while the extended road of Jawahar Road in Chokkikulam joins ITO Road.
A combination of factors such as narrow roads, lack of a roundabout, haphazard parking of vehicles, non-functional signals and lack of traffic police force have turned this place into a chaotic junction, especially during peak hours in the morning and evening.
The importance of the junction is that all buses proceeding to Kulamangalam, Mahatma Gandhi Nagar, Postal and Telegraph Colony, Krishnapuram Colony have to take this junction while coming from Tamukkam.
Similarly, hundreds of two-wheelers, autorickshaws, vans and buses ferrying students to various educational institutions located in Narimedu and important offices such as Income Tax Office, BSNL Head Office and Office of the Postmaster General, Southern Region, criss-cross this junction.
While the PTR Road and ITO Road are in a straight line, the other two roads are more than 20 feet apart thus causing the difficulty.
An elongated traffic island could serve the cause of regulating the two-way traffic from all the four roads. But, with the junction located on a narrow bridge over the Bibikulam channel is a hindrance. As a result, a small make-shift traffic island has been put up in one corner of the junction that is often bypassed by the vehicle users.
“It becomes difficult to manoeuvre the island which is placed in a corner, the reason why people violate the rule,” said autorickshaw driver A. Motilal Nehru. Vehicles hitting each other at the junction is common. And often this results in quarrels. Adding to the confusion are traffic signal posts on the middle of the narrow roads on PTR Road and more on Kulamangalam Road. The non-functional signals pose hindrance to heavy vehicles that need to make sharp turns. Parking of two-wheelers at the junction completes the complication.
Mr. Nehru suggested that if a portion of the Bibikulam channel along Kulamangalam Road is covered, it would not only widen the junction but also straighten the link between Kulamangalam Road and Jawahar Road and ease the efforts to cross the junction.
Till then, the signal posts could be shifted to the roadside and the signals activated or police personnel posted to regulate the traffic.
