One of the vexatious problems faced by the residents in Ward 182 covering Thiruvanmiyur is traffic congestion. The once sleepy locality forming the boundary of the old Chennai Corporation before it was expanded to 200 wards is bustling with vehicular population, commercial complexes and multi-storeyed residential apartments.
Moreover, being the gateway to the ECR and providing the main link road to the Information Technology corridor of Rajiv Gandhi Salai the residents have to face the brunt of vehicular congestion from other localities.
S. Praveenkumar, a resident of Pillayar Koil Street, citing the traffic pileup being a daily feature at the Thiruvanmiyur signal, said motorists, in order to avoid this signal were using the narrow residential roads causing traffic bottlenecks. Adding to the traffic chaos in the interior streets is the unauthorised parking of vehicles on the road with little being done by the Traffic Police to prevent such parking.
Similarly the residents of Thiruvalluvar Nagar and nearby localities have been seeking for a ration shop to be opened, as they have to go a long way to Srinivasapuram to purchase ration articles. The Chennai Corporation even identified the land for constructing a ration shop in Thiruveethi Amman Koil Street but the project failed to take off, rued Bharathi, a housewife of Thiruvalluvar Nagar 1st Street.
The residents of Kamaraj Nagar West Avenue said the overflowing Buckingham Canal during the heavy rains in December last year caused severe flooding and wanted the civic body to take steps to regularly clean the stormwater drains.
The residents of Thiruvanmiyur are also concerned about the road condition in several streets which are yet to be re-laid though the officials of the civic body claimed more than 70 roads have been newly laid.
Councillor K. Usha Kumar said the civic body had taken several steps to improve infrastructure by installing new bus shelters, replacing more than 600 LED street lights, paving disabled-friendly footpath in Journalist Colony and relaying new roads.
The Chennai Corporation has also developed a grid road network for easy pedestrian movement with wide footpaths in Kamaraj Nagar (West) Main Road and L.B. Road complete with bollards and tiles.
