As a measure to ensure smooth flow of traffic, the State Highways Department is building an additional bridge across the Adyar river at Manapakkam.
The new structure is being built adjacent to the existing bridge near MIOT Hospitals. Preliminary work on the Adyar river bed to widen the bridge on Mount Poonamallee Road is in progress.
Residents of Manapakkam and Ramapuram welcomed the initiative as it would ease the traffic congestion. Motorists often spend close to half-an-hour stranded in traffic during peak hours.
S. Murugan, a resident of Ramapuram, said the bridge is an important link to areas such as Guindy and Porur. While it is a good move to widen the bridge at Manapakkam, which witnesses heavy traffic flow, the departments concerned must also consider building flyovers at other busy junctions such as Ramapuram and Mugalivakkam.
Officials of the Water Resources Department said the new facility is coming up across the 120-metre-wide river. The WRD has sanctioned the project as the Highways Department has promised to build the new facility without altering the alignment, and the river flow would not be affected.
Sources in the Highways Department said that the Mount Poonamallee Road witnessed maximum traffic heading outside Chennai city. “It carries traffic to Poonamallee and beyond. Even though that road is six lanes wide, it takes more traffic than it can carry,” explained a source. Work on the bridge at Manapakkam is progressing well. It is nine-spans long and is coming up next to an existing bridge. It would help add two more lanes to the existing four-lane structure. The bridge was originally a two-lane facility, which was widened to four lanes.
Though the department has time till March 2018 to complete the ₹17 crore facility, they have planned to complete the project by the year-end. The median would be moved to allow three-lane traffic on either side. Once the work is completed, traffic bottleneck at that location would be removed, sources said.
