Royapettah High Road and Gaudiya Mutt Road can leave motorists exhausted. Haphazard parked vehicles takes a huge bite out of the road space, leaving motorists with a narrow space.
During rush hour, it takes over 20 minutes to cross the Royapettah intersection.
“The vehicular congestion can be attributed to the haphazard parking of vehicles. These two thoroughfares are lined with commercial establishments. Except for a few of them, these commercial establishments don’t offer dedicated parking for visitors. People visiting them have choice but to have their vehicles parked on the road,” says S. Rekha, a resident of Mylapore.
“The pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. As the impatient motorists often ignore lane discipline, these pedestrians have to tread cautiously. Having been placed in the middle of the road, the garbage bins add to the chaos. . On both the stretches, their presence has been hindering free movement of vehicular traffic,” adds Rekha.
Where these two roads meet is a narrow thoroughfare. Near the converging point of these two roads — Royapettah High Road with its two-way traffic and Gaudiya Mutt Road with its one-way traffic — is the E2 Royapettah Police Station.
“Many motorists use this thoroughfare to reach Mount Road, Triplicane and other areas in the vicinity to avoid getting struck in the slow-moving vehicular traffic caused by the ongoing Metro Rail work on Anna Salai. As With Thiru-Vi-Ka Road, West Cott Road, and Whites Road, Royapettah, having busy establishments, the traffic problem escalates,” says S. Shiva Kumar, a resident of Royapettah.
“The civic-body and the Chennai Traffic Police must take action against traders, who have encroached upon the pedestrian space. Even those parking vehicles on the roads must be penalised,” a resident of Gaudiya Mutt Road says.
Officials of the Chennai Traffic Police say they regularly tow vehicles parked in a haphazard manner on the road.
The traffic congestion they blamed on growing vehicular population. We recently installed traffic and pedestrian signals at the junction of Thiru-Vi-Ka Road, West Cott Road, and Royapettah High Road to ensure smooth movement of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, they say.
