Following complaints, Madhya Kailash flyover gets smooth tar coat

Madhya Kailash flyover receives a smooth tar coat after commuter complaints about its bumpy surface.

Following complaints from motorists, the Highways Department has laid a bituminous tar wearing coat on the new Madhya Kailash flyover. The work, which began on Wednesday night, was completed by late Thursday morning. 

The flyover was closed to facilitate the work, causing traffic entering Rajiv Gandhi Salai to slow down. The pile-up started atop the IIT flyover. “Since there were many complaints, we laid a wearing coat on top of the existing cement concrete (CC) coat. Since CC is a hard surface and not flexible such as a tar surface, it felt bumpy and bouncy. The height of the top layer has been increased by three inches, and thereby, the dead weight of the bridge has increased,” said an official source. Fresh rumble strips would be laid to prevent speeding, said another source.

A retired highways engineer said according to the Indian Roads Congress 2015 Code, CC wearing coat could be used only in rural areas, where traffic volume would be considerably less. “In urban areas, it is not allowed. The design wing seems to have recommended it against the code. Only about 25 mm of road has been laid, which is not a big weight. At one point, the height of Anna Flyover had increased by 15 cm due to relaying over a period of time, until we removed the top layer,” he pointed out.

He added that going by the look and bumpy feel of the flyover, its roughness index would have been much higher than 2,000 mm. “It is an index that is used to measure the roughness of the road. It tells us how much the level of the road surface changes over a kilometre. This seems to have been set right with the relaying of the surface.”

The Hindu had reported earlier on the commuters’ complaints about the bumpy stretch of the new flyover.