Traffic congestion on Thanjavur Road, between the Gandhi Market and Ariyamangalam, is worsening day by day.
The opening of the Odathurai bridge which leads to the city from Chennai By-pass Road along the Cauvery banks appears to have had little impact in reducing the congestion as many motorists continue to prefer the shorter access route to the city via Gandhi Market.
Traffic snarls are order of the day on the less than two-kilometre stretch from Palpannai to Gandhi Market. For most part of the forenoon on Tuesday, long traffic snarls give a torrid time to motorists on the road. Vehicles had to move bumper-to-bumper as a few policemen near the Gandhi Market intersection struggle to regulate the traffic.
With the City police unable to enforce the timings for goods vehicles operating to and from the market, a huge number of goods vehicles could be seen plying on the road throughout the day even during peak hours.
An equal number of smaller goods vans, motorised fishcarts and hand carts operate around the market causing frequent traffic gridlocks.
“The situation is turning bad from worse. It is highly difficult to get across the road without being caught in a traffic snarl and these days there seems to a huge increase in the volume of traffic,” fumed a taxi driver, Kannan.
Apart from lax enforcement, poor traffic discipline exhibited by motorists, including two-wheeler riders compound the problem. Very often, two wheeler riders, autorickshaws and handcarts jump the queue causing frequent traffic gridlocks.
With vehicles joining Thanjavur Road from several by-lanes, especially near Fish Market and Tharanallur, the intersections become the focal point of the gridlocks. A bus stop near the market where huge garbage bins had been placed along Thanjavur Road results in bottleneck with town buses halting right on the middle of the road blocking vehicles coming behind.
Although the police opened up Nelpettai Road about three years ago to divert Tiruverumbur/ Thuvakudi-bound buses through it, the congestion had not eased.
Except for the intersection on Palakkarai Main Road, there is hardly any police presence at the other intersections creating a free-for-all situation, rues another motorist.
As the corporation’s plans of shifting sections of wholesale traders out of the Gandhi Market has failed to take off, some of the road users suggest that the police take steps divert some of the traffic through Odathurai Road.
“The authorities have to find a way out of the problem. The Highways Department had assured to remove encroachments and relay the road from Palpannai to Palakkarai Main Road on Thanjavur Road after local residents threatened an election boycott over a decade back. But nothing has happened yet. There are encroachments which could be removed and this could help relieve the congestion to some extent. There is no enforcement of traffic rules here,” says M.Sekaran, president, Tamil Nadu Federation of Consumer and Service Organisations.
The authorities could try and divert some of the traffic from East Boulevard Road via Keerakadai, North Tharanallur and Viswas Nagar to reach Chennai Bypass Road, he suggests.
