There is always a mental picture of how things should be. It seldom matches the real picture, which is invariably marred by the smudges of reality. Occasionally, the real picture comes close to the one we carry in our heads. On a section of Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), I see a closeness between the real and the imagined.
My mental picture of a busy junction on an arterial road includes at least one mass transit system, free movement of road traffic and user-friendly facilities for pedestrians. With a foot overbridge extending from the entrance of Ramanujam IT City to the Thiruvanmiyur MRTS station thrown open to pedestrians, this section of OMR is now moving close to that image. As it has an elevator and its ramps lead to the MRTS station as well as a bus stop, the foot overbridge ticks the boxes for user-friendliness and effectiveness.
More significantly, it is a big boost to road safety on this section where vehicular traffic moves faster. Through there is another foot overbridge, which extends from the entrance of Tidel Park to the MRTS station, many of those working at the offices of Ramanujam IT City and other pedestrians would not take the trouble of using it, because it involved extra walking. They would instead do a risky hurdle-run across OMR, jumping over the low median to reach the other side of the road.
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The highlight of this initiative is that it came from an IT park. Ramanjuam IT City built the facility with permission from Tamil Nadu Road Development Corporation, which maintains the road. It should hopefully serve as a template for other IT parks to follow. For, in the future, more IT parks and other transit systems will come up on OMR and safe access to these facilities across the road will be an issue to be addressed.
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“Earlier, on OMR, the supply of work spaces for the IT sector was higher than the demand. The equation has changed now: the demand has climbed higher. Three more IT parks will be coming up on OMR. In addition, Chennai World Trade Center, a commercial center with a mammoth office space, is being constructed in Perungudi. With such growth on the horizon, the question of safe access to places of work assumes greater significance. Quicker government approvals for projects by IT parks to create safe access for their workforce and other pedestrians will be a necessity,” says K Purushothaman, head, IT services - India, National Association of Software and Services Companies.
When an IT park constructs something like this, it benefits not only the workforce at its offices, but also the rest of the population. And, on OMR, the numbers of the non-IT crowd are also steadily increasing.