The past few years have not been kind to people in Ward 176 in Besant Nagar.
Once a quiet locality, it is now a thriving shopping and recreation hub and sees hundreds of visitors every weekend. With cars and motorcycles crowding in, it’s not only the roads that are lined with vehicles, but pavements too leaving residents with no space to walk, residents say.
“I cannot go out of the house after 6 p.m.,” said V. Chandrasekhar, a retired professor and resident of 25 Cross Street. “Pavements have vanished and senior citizens dread walking on the roads. The new wide pavements built on 2 Avenue are being used like roads by two-wheelers. Vendors and hawkers are on them, and on others, construction material is dumped,” he said.
Dharmesh Shah, a resident of 28 Cross Street said that parking on the streets leading to the beach was common. “The side streets get so jammed that people cannot walk. Cars and bikes speed across these roads. It’s a nightmare for pedestrians,” he said, adding that excessive commercialisation had taken place in the locality.
Other residents complained of being forced to walk in the middle of the road, of footpaths being occupied with parked vehicles, junction boxes and cables on pavements and of not being able to cross the streets.
Poor lighting in streets Another issue in the locality, said C. Vijayalakshmi, was poor street-lighting. “The lights in many of the streets don’t work and the area remains dark. It is not safe and anything can happen,” she said.
With a large number of visitors coming in every weekend, backyards of apartment complexes are becoming open toilets, said Mr. Chandrasekshar. The ‘bio-toilet’ set up by the Chennai Corporation near the bus depot is a failure, said Kamakshi Subramaniyan, a resident of 4 Avenue. “People just think they can urinate all over it,” she said.
AIADMK councillor S. Valliammal said that encroachments on pavements were a problem but that it was being dealt with as much as possible. “A lot of the vendors have court orders,” she said. On the streetlights, she said about 80 per cent were working and complaints were attended too. The bio-toilets need a dedicated worker for their maintenance, she said, but the Corporation had not allotted anyone.
