Motorists travelling by the Tiruchi-Pudukottai national highway often find themselves in a spot negotiating a perilous traffic bottleneck right at the entrance of the airport in the city. Road users crossing over the national highway near the median at the entrance of the airport are often the victims of hit-and-run accidents.
A site of continuous vehicular movement, the airport is perched on the busy highway which has vehicles zooming at high speed outside the city limits, while vehicles of passengers in a hurry to board aircrafts, often zip in and out of gates.
Apart from the traffic flow to the airport, motorists from Kamaraj Nagar and extension areas of K.K.Nagar take this road into the city.
Those who cross the highway must negotiate the opening provided right opposite the airport entrance. They run the risk of getting knocked down by speeding vehicles as was the case of a Central Industrial Security Force staff who suffered a spinal injury recently.
Two bus stops on either side of the highway, one next to the airport entrance and another opposite it, compound the problem, according to airport sources.
These buses rarely stop at the shelters allocated to them and halt very close to the median.
Vehicles that overtake often run on to vehicles negotiating the medians. The buses coming from Pudukottai more often than not halt right at the opening of the Wireless Road, the entrance to Kamarajar Nagar, blocking vehicles crossing to the other side.
An official says bus passengers flocking the entrance of the airport add to the congestion. “Vehicles that drop passengers halt right at the entrance to evade the parking fee as there is no regulation.”
“Accidents are a regular affair at this junction and happen every other day,” says an auto driver from the stand adjacent to the airport. A petty shop owner opposite the airport concurs that hit and run accidents occur irrespective of flight timings.
As speed breakers cannot be erected on the national highway and close to the airport, given the regular VIP movement, shift of the bus shelters has been a suggestion put forward by airport officials. The airport administration has suggested that the bus stops on both sides of the national highway be shifted.
