S. Sabesh, a resident of Vadapalani, had a tough time reaching his office near Madras High Court on Tuesday morning.
Traffic was moving slowly on Anna Salai due to a myriad of reasons. Many two-wheeler riders like Sabesh reach their offices drenched due to the rains.
From 10.30 a.m., scores of people thronged the Anna Salai-Nandanam junction to garland the Thevar statue on the occasion of Thevar Jayanthi. “I come through Ranganathan subway and hit Anna Salai to go to my office. The celebration started during office hours. Due to the presence of many people, traffic movement was affected. It took me 20 minutes to reach Nandanam signal from Saidapet,” said Sabesh.
The police said the function did not affect traffic flow much. As the Chennai City Traffic Police had made arrangements for parking of vehicles of participants in the event, there were no large-scale traffic snarls, they said.
During the day, traffic was also hampered by the rains. “Due to the heavy rains most of the vehicles were moving slowly. On normal days, the traffic movement is heavy. The downpour just worsened the situation. My brother who was coming from Gemini Flyover also said that the traffic movement was slow,” said V. Bharat, a resident of Alwarpet.
Besides, the ongoing metro rail work also slowed down traffic. “The rains and the metro rail work are the main reasons for the slow movement of traffic. As far as the function for garlanding the statue was concerned, it was mostly a floating crowd. So it did not have any major impact on traffic,” said a police official, who was present at the event.
