The city's favourite getaway highway is now 10 years old. In a series of reports, The Hindu will examine how the development of this 113-km long stretch has had a far-reaching impact on Chennai and its people. Deepa H. Ramakrishnan on the journey so far and the road ahead
The swanky East Coast Road, which influenced lifestyles and aspirations of Chennai, has turned 10. The 113-km long stretch from Akkarai to Puducherry, dotted with resorts and beach houses, became a toll facility in March 2002 and was upgraded into a two-lane road from a small winding road passing through 154 villages.
The next big change that the road is likely to witness is the proposed four-laning. The detailed project report to widen it further with a median up to Mamallapuram is in the final stages and is expected to be submitted to the State government soon by the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC), which manages the facility. The consultant is currently looking at the environmental aspects of the project.
TNRDC managing director P. Umanath said that the ECR as a project has fully served its intended objectives during this 10 year period. “Our future endeavours will be to make the road more user-friendly, minimise accidents and support initiatives to promote tourism.”
The ECR also has been a learning curve for the TNRDC. Its former director K.R. Viswanathan said that for TNRDC, the ECR was the first Build-Operate-Transfer project that showed the potential for road development and opened the door for the more ambitious IT Corridor project on the same model and commercialise it successfully.
The road was built in 1998 by interlinking and improving a series of small village roads that connected the fishing villages along the east coast. The idea was to create infrastructure, facilitate inter-state connectivity and boost tourist movement. But within two years, it started showing signs of distress, adversely affecting the quality of rides and safety of motorists. In 2000, the State government signed a concessionaire agreement with the TNRDC in order to improve the road.
When the road was being built initially, several environmentalists and NGOs, including Indian National Trust for Architecture and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), objected to it as many trees had to be cut, which they said would lead to indiscriminate groundwater extraction.
“We had also objected as there are habitations every 1.6 km or 2 km and that could lead to accidents, which has become a fact now. If the government is planning to develop the road, it should ensure that the development on both sides is controlled and eco-friendly,” said INTACH Ajit Koujalgi co-convenor, Pondicherry, who had filed a case in the 1990s against its widening. However, road experts say that widening is a must to avoid accidents. “Environmentalists and the communities along the road must be taken into confidence and a strategy must be worked out to widen the road. Otherwise it would only lead to more accidents,” said a source, who was involved in the first phase of development of the road.
The road sees a number of accidents every year. G. Thirumugan, a taxi driver, who goes on trips to Puducherry frequently, said that many drivers think twice before taking the road on weekends. “People drive at breakneck speed and with the many curves on the road, vehicles easily turn turtle,” he said.
According to statistics available with Chennai Traffic Police, last year alone there were 51 fatal and 122 non-fatal accidents on the ECR in the stretch leading up to Muttukaadu. According to TNRDC statistics, there is one accident daily and 10 to 15 fatal accidents in a year between Akkarai and Keezh Puthupattu near Puducherry.
Many like S. Surya, who is in the hospitality industry, take a break once in two weeks to hang out with friends at beach resorts on the ECR.
“I love to drive fast on the road. We no longer prefer to drive to Pondy as the prices of alcoholic beverages are not very different from that in Chennai. Instead we have our own hangouts. There are places that extend the courtesy of letting you bring your own alcohol for parties,” Surya said.
Apart from making people want to take a fast ride, the road has fuelled the development of real estate, beach resorts and other tourism development activities.
Markand Desai, a property developer, who invested on the eastern side of the ECR 32 years ago, said that it was the development of the road that led to the boom in real estate. “The price of land has increased by 25 percent every year. Now the road is home to many of Chennai's rich and famous. People also seem to know to spend money and enjoy the facilities.”
Keywords: ECR Road, Chennai Corporation, National Highways
I have been using ECR Roads for past 10 years only thing is lot of bends present in this roads so more accidents happend in this road. Govt taken immediate steps to covert four lane roads chennai to pondhicherry..
ECR,once popularly known as East Coast Runway is crying for maintanance
and so are the ECR users. Wish it is atleast maintained as the initial
years with illuminated lanes and other promised facilities.Otherwise in
the longer run BOT projects will face only opposition and not
encouragement by the public.
I have beeen using ECR for the past ten years. I enjoy the ride everyday. ECR has its
own problems. It has no street lamps and often leads to accidents for which even I
was a victim. Apart from laying roads, adding flood lights, regulating drunken share
auto drivers is needed.
Government should have a vision to make all roads safer and easy to
use. The proposal to increase the number of lanes is good, however i
would expect the road development corporation to come out with a
design that is safe, makes the commute easy, and has enough room for
further development. First and foremost thing, the design should have
dedicated lanes for various traffic speeds and guidance to police for
strictly enforcing the lane rules irrespective of who owns or drives
the vehicle. There should also be a shoulder on both directions to
pull over any vehicle in distress.At the end of the day, we as
citizens should also obey the rules properly.
I am very happy at the proposal of ECR being expanded into four lanes,
but this would again mean tree cutting and loss of precious agricultural
land as bypass at medium towns along the way is essential.
As a regular traveller between Pondicherry and Chennai in car, i've
started using the more spacious NH via Tindivanam. It saves more time
and also gives a more safer drive.
The great East Coast Road starts just at the corner of the Thiruvanmiyur bus stand. When you take the first turn and travel towards the RTO office the first block is an old Agastiar Temple without any activity chocks the road and prevents any development. The moment it was announced by the government to relay the road into a four lane track there was big objection for doing so and some immediately and took control of the Agastiar who was more or less dead and sleeping for ages and woke him up by white washing the temple and done some instant renovation and left him to sleep subsequently.
This country cannot develop even if you wish to develop because of some lazy illiterates! One will not be surprised someday Agastiar himself stands in the middle of the road and supervise the laying of the four lane track of ECR just starting from the Agastiar Mandabam!
Sure this would be appreciated by many educated elite in our community! Pray Government would be bold to move forward now at least!
The ECR has still a very long way to go before it reaches Western standards. Our
road experts urgently need the help of real experts in the field right from the
planning stages. Disorderly expansion of the road is not the solution and our
experts need to plan to develop the environment (the hard shoulder, planting of
vegetation, construction of appropriate medians, pedestrian overbridges, exits etc)
rather than just the road.
It would be really great if the Municipal Authorities ensured that the cattle are not let to roam as seen in the picture of this article, and prevent unnecessary killing of the same by speeding vehicles. These poor cows die a painful death when hit by vehicles. Chennai needs more farm space to ensure these cows have access to food without having to cross the busy lanes.
ECR might be one of the best things that's happened in Chennai,but its the worst thing to happen for cattle , as is evident in this picture itself there are hundreds of free roaming cattle which are on the road and sit on the median.There are dozens of poor cows who meet with accidents every week and it should be the Corporations job to see that there is enough area available for them to graze around and also take strict action against the owners
These cattle belong to the people nearby who let them roam around for food. We need to have a bigger farm space for cattle as they are as much a part of this world as we are and we have taken away their place .
Though this comes as a welcome change, i fail to fathom the
rationale behind every project by Govt needing an upgradation in few
years; which could be avoided if they have better foresight.ECR sans
dual carriage and running sinuous through more than 100 villages was
a safety misjudgement in first place. This holds true for roads when
built being narrow and latter in the name of road widening projects
they create havoc to road side shops. Had the planning been done,
the shops in first place would not have been given permission to be
built and roads wont be needing the expansion. Hope our Govt gets
better prescient with proper administration handover!
You should have also included the amount collected against the planned revenue versus the cost of the project. Even though the number of vehicles had tripled against the planned usage and the initial period for collection of toll was only 5 years against the 10 years completed, no one is sharing the cost benefits. This will keep the toll paying customers happy.
The government has made several announcement of widening ECR for the past few years. Nothing has come of it. The public can only hope that this time they are really sincere in carrying out the plans. The planners should include FOBs, service lanes (to facilitate proper entry/exit to connecting roads), emergency parking facilities, curb, platform for foot traffic near villages to make it safer.
This road may be "swanky" by Indian standards but looking at the picture it does no Indian proud. When people to cows criss cross the swanky road, they are susceptible to get run over by the speeding vehicles. Indian road authorities should look at how the roads are built in America and other Western nations and see what protection is provided to the people from crossing the road and endangering their lives.
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