After a brief pause for soil tests, permission and trials for traffic diversions, work to construct the 1.15 km-long ₹93.50 crore flyover on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai in front of the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) at Koyambedu is progressing well.
A 200-metre stretch of the road has been barricaded at the centre and work on laying the foundation is on. By next week, the next stretch would be barricaded for the flyover.
Footpath space
Since one lane on either side of the median will be closed for traffic for the work, space from the footpaths has been taken to allow smooth flow of traffic. The four-lane bi-directional flyover will stretch across the junction of Jawaharlal Nehru Salai and Kaliamman Koil Street where traffic from Anna Nagar, Vadapalani and Virugambakkam converges. It would allow 69% of the 90,000 vehicles proceeding from and to Anna Nagar and Vadapalani to avoid stopping at the signal.
It took the department some time to get police permission since around 10,000 government buses enter and exit CMBT the junction. “There is very heavy traffic till as late as 11.30 p.m. and from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., in addition to the regular rush hours,” said a source at the Highways Department, which plans to complete the work by March 2019. “Since we cannot work much during day time, and have very little time at night, we have planned to pre-cast the girders for the 40 spans,” the source added.
Proposal dropped
S. Arumainathan, president, Virugambakkam Residents Welfare Association, said that initially, there was a proposal for an arm of the flyover to land on Kaliamman Koil Street. “That proposal seems to have been dropped citing the fewer number of vehicles on the road that carries traffic from Virugambakkam, Valasaravakkam and Saligramam. Though the number of vehicles taking Kaliamman Koil Street is low, the stretch is very narrow, leading to traffic jams daily. We hope this flyover will help ease traffic in our area too,” he said.
