Frequent traffic snarls on Medavakkam Main Road may soon be a thing of the past.
Widening of this arterial road, also known as Mount Madipakkam Road, is set to begin with the State government having recently announced the acquisition of 1,873 square metres (20,160 square feet) to convert the entire 9 km road into a four-lane highway.
The road, running through a large residential corridor, connects St. Thomas Mount Railway station with Medavakkam on Velachery Main Road and, over the years, has become an important arterial link under the care and maintenance of the State Highways Department.
As it criss-crosses the southern sector of Inner Ring Road at Vanuvampettai and also Pallavaram – Thoraipakkam Radial Road at Eachangadu, traffic flow on this road is generally heavy.
With a number of localities on this stretch – Alandur, Ullagaram, Puzhuthivakkam municipalities and village panchayats like Madipakkam having been recently merged with Chennai Corporation and with a jump in the number of services and new routes catered to by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), residents here had been appealing to the State government to improve the road to be able to deal with its huge burden of traffic.
Between 2006 and 2010, Rs. 16 crore was spent to widen the road and create permanent raised medians. However, improvement work remained incomplete in many spots, especially on the stretch between Keelkattalai and Vanuvampettai.
Officials of the State Highways Department said they could not expedite widening and improvement work as a lot of land that needed to be acquired was classified as ‘patta’ (under the ownership of people). At present, the road’s width varies between less than 7 metres to the planned 16 metres.
Residents of Adambakkam said that in the absence of road-widening work, traffic chaos had become the order of the day in Ullagaram, Madipakkam, Keelkattalai and Vanuvampettai.
During the morning rush hour, it takes people travelling on MTC services from remote pockets such as Nanmangalam or Sunnambu Kulathur nearly an hour to reach St. Thomas Mount or Guindy railway stations.
Officials said that in October, the department had passed an order that had identified the land — under the Alandur Taluk of Tambaram Revenue Division in Kancheepuram district — for acquisition. Once all the procedures were completed, work on road widening would be taken up.
Once the road was widened and improved, it would ease traffic considerably and also enhance the safety of motorists, the officials added.
Keywords: Medavakkam Main Road, road widening project, MTC buses
My family lives in keelkatalai and we built our dream house with all our efforts and
resources, hoping to have a better life. Our days have become a nightmare every time
we have to go to chennai with average travel time of more than a hour just to touch the
city, the signs of the road expansion plan has been there for years and years of time,
the above article by hindu is just stating the facts as it is in the planning document is
not reflecting the reality, the truth is that this road will never come up even for years
and years to come and there is no way we will be able to change this reality. The
people in this location and even other people of tamil nadu definitely deserve better
than this.
I am 100% sure that the people living in these localities have given up their hope in seeing this road being widened permitting smooth traffic flow. Pity that it has remained a classic example of poor urban planning with no future insight and utter negligence shown by succesive governments over the past decade ! As highlighted by Dr.Shriram, it would be a miracle if this gets completed, in say, a couple of years from now...
I am normally optimist and turn pessimist when I of hear any government plans. I request THE HINDU to please mark this day in your calendar, keep tracking the happenings and publish a 'Diary of events' if and when the project is completed in its entirety.
I just pray that its not after decades!
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