Chennai: the pothole capital

Whether it be arterial stretches in the city centre or small yet busy roads in the suburbs, poor quality of road laying and repair has paved the way for frequent, recurring damages to the riding surface.

January 27, 2015 08:13 am | Updated 08:13 am IST - CHENNAI:

Millers Road, Purasawalkam.

Millers Road, Purasawalkam.

Even as the Chennai Corporation continues to spend hundreds of crores repairing roads that were only recently laid, residents say that often, damages recur within a few months.

Elephant Gate Bridge Road, for instance, was re-laid only recently. But a stretch of it has already been damaged. “The Corporation does not take into account the heavy vehicular traffic on this stretch,” said V. Nagarajan, a resident of the road.

An example of recurring damage to a road surface is ‘shoving’ — deformations formed in the pavement surface, especially at intersections where there is excessive braking and halting of traffic — near Central Railway Station on Stanley Viaduct.

Another example is a pothole resulting from a poor design of the sewer network on Millers Road in Purasawalkam. The pothole near Motcham theatre has been the cause behind frequent accidents on the stretch. “Last Sunday, a woman on a motorcycle went over the pothole and fell. At least five accidents have been reported at the spot in the past few days,” said Shabbir Ahamed, a resident.

Portions of Pantheon Road exhibit ‘fatigue cracking’ within a few months of re-laying. Road experts say that the road may develop potholes in a few months and such damages are caused due to the shoddy standard of work executed by contractors.

On Vivekananda Nagar Main Road, Kolathur, though patchwork repair has been carried out a few times, several stretches are marred by potholes. Several roads like 18th Main Road in Anna Nagar are also damaged.

It is not just roads with tar topping, but cement concrete roads too that have become damaged. “The Corporation laid a concrete layer a few years ago on Thirumurthy Nagar Sixth Street in Nungambakkam. The road is now severely worn,” said P. Swaminathan, a resident.

A combination of factors including water-logging and delays in road- laying has caused damage to the riding surface in several parts of north Chennai, including portions of Perambur High Road, Stephenson Road, Perambur Barracks Road, Medavakkam Tank Road, Anderson Road and Konnur High Road.

K. Ramadoss, a social activist from Ayanavaram, said Konnur High Road that links Villivakkam, Ambattur, Padi, and Anna Nagar with the city was in a bad condition.

In the case of some interior roads, blue metal and earth are just spread and left to settle, causing a lot of inconvenience to road users. G.E. Balajee, who works in Taramani, said V.V. Koil Street — an important link between Taramani Link Road and CSIR Road where many IT companies are located — was in an awful state. “It is a small road but used by hundreds of motorists every day. My two-wheeler needs frequent servicing because of the condition of that road,” he said.

The suburbs are no better. Nallathambi Street, Pammal Main Road and Pozhichalur Main Road are some of the major link roads yet to receive any attention. Chitra Sampathkumar, a resident of Anna Street, called for immediate action by the respective local bodies.

Expert speaks

Assuming the stormwater drains and the camber (curve of the road to facilitate drainage on the sides) are of the right specifications, there are a few important factors that determine the quality of the road surface.

“A regular tar road is topped with a mixture of bitumen (binding material) and aggregate (the gravel),” said V. Thamizh Arasan, former professor, transportation engineering division, department of civil engineering, IIT-Madras.

The size of the aggregate (aggregate grading) should be as per specifications and mixed with the right amount of bitumen to ensure that the road surface does not suffer wear-and-tear, and to prevent percolation of water in large quantities. “The contractor must also ensure that the bitumen mix is maintained at the proper temperature while being transported from the central plant to the site of road laying,” he said.

The way the road is compacted (with rollers) also makes a big difference. “If the road is laid according to standards specified in the Indian Road Congress, common problems like ‘ravelling’ or loosening of the topmost gravel surface can be avoided,” prof. Thamizh Arasan added.

City roads should not suffer from rutting and fatigue cracking if they have been laid according to specifications, because a majority of the vehicles that travel on them are light, he pointed out.

When it comes to concrete roads, since they are laid on top of existing bitumen roads, the quality of the layers underneath will affect the quality of the concrete road, he said.

(With reporting by Aloysius Xavier Lopez, Deepa H. Ramakrishnan, K. Lakshmi, Evelyn Ratnakumar, Kavita Kishore, T. Madhavan and R. Srikanth)

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