Two years back, when the Melepazhavangadi flyover was opened to traffic, it was meant primarily to provide connectivity between the Kazhakkuttam-Karode bypass and the National Highway 66, from the Aryasala junction.
It was also meant to evacuate the traffic from the eastern part of the city to the west on days when the arterial road gets clogged when marches and demonstrations are held. But even as the relatively wider roads from the Power House side have made approach to the flyover easier, the narrow roads on the West Fort side continue to make life hard for road users who are looking for an easy route to the bypass and to reach the airport.
The two roads that continue to cause trouble to regular commuters, including pedestrians, are the narrow stretch from Kaithamukku to West Fort via Punnapuram and the busy road that branches off from Sreekanteswaram to West Gate of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.
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No parking
With chock-a-block traffic, parking is a no-no on the Sreekanteswaram-West Nada stretch and there is little scope for further improvement of the road, which was widened and paved recently under the city road development project. Parking of vehicles by visitors to the SP Fort Hospital on the roads was a major problem till recently, but the hospital has now acquired a parking lot close to the Sreekanteswaram Park.
That leaves the stretch between Kaithamukku and West Fort through the outer area of the fort wall, which, before the development of the Pettah-All Saints College road and opening of the new entrance to the Thiruvananthapuram international airport, was the main route connecting the city to the airport.
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However, over the years, encroachments from the residents on the sides of the short, straight stretch through Punnapuram has led to further narrowing of this corridor. The outer boundaries of some of these houses have always been unclear, which has led to encroachments, which still continue as the authorities look askance.
From the West Fort side, the road virtually circles the old Devi temple before straightening out to the sharp curve to the right at Palliyadakkmukku. There were plans to have a new opening to the West Fort-Eanchackal stretch cutting through some shops located at West Fort, but that never happened. The end result is clogging of traffic at West Fort where six roads, including that from the bypass converge. Whenever the wide-bodied JNNURM buses reaches the stretch, there is a traffic bottleneck at West Fort.
The situation is no different on the road from the flyover leading to Sreekanteswaram and Upidamoodu junction. With the entire stretch to Kaithamukku junction lined with shops, vehicles are parked haphazardly along the road, leaving only little space on the road, most of the time.
At the Upidamoodu junction, chaos reigns on the turning to Sreekanteswaram and Kaithamukku, as hardly anyone takes the traffic light here seriously.