In the shadow of metro rail work: A look at some stretches in Chennai

On Mambakkam-Medavakkam Main Road, Babu Nagar Third Main Road junction feels the effect of traffic diversion and at Karpagambal Nagar in Mylapore pavement space is yet to be freed up. And, Srinivasa Avenue in Mylapore struggling to regain a degree of normality

If a road is receiving a greater volume of vehicles than ever before, watch its traditionally busy junctions for telltale signs of overwork. They will never disappoint you. Between Sai Baba Koil junction and Velachery Main Road, Mambakkam Medavakkam Main Road finds an extremely busy junction at Babu Nagar Third Main Road. Here vehicles pour into Mambakkam Medavakkam Main Road from Babu Nagar Third Main Road and Annai Kasturibai Gandhi Street. But it is the added traffic flowing down the arterial road towards Velachery Main Road that has tipped the balance. With traffic being diverted from Perumbakkam Main Road towards Mambakkam Medavakkam Main Road, this side of the carriageway has taken a battering. Since the diversion was clamped into place one side of this junction has looked worn-down. From time to time, a quickfire restoration would lift up its spirit only to send it careening back down the valley — as the effects of the remedial work would be short-lived. Now, the managers of the road (the highways) seem to have given up on this section. It has never looked as battered as it does now.

An interior junction

In the interior section, another junction bears the effects of overwork. Through running parallel, Babu Nagar First Main Road and Babu Nagar Second Main Road meet through an extension of the latter. This junction wears a pitted look and raises dust during rush hour as this junction is part of the route taken by motorists headed towards Tambaram that want to avoid taking the Medavakkam flyover. In normal circumstances, these motorists would have taken a left turn at the junction of Velachery Main Road and Mambakkam-Medavakkkam Main Road and driven towards Tambaram. Metro Rail work has now shut down that option.

It comes with the incredulity of a hat trick. A magician pulling an endlessly flowing strip of colour paper from a hat. But this is no sleight of hand. The endlessly stretching row of vehicles — sitting helplessly on their haunches — on Nookampalayam Road as it meets Perumbakkam Main Road is real, exasperatingly real.

This scenario plays out during the morning rush hour when streams of vehicles head out of Nookampalayam Main Road towards workplaces on the IT corridor. It is not uncommon for the queue of waiting vehicles to extend 300-400 metres, if not more, into Nookampalayam Main Road.

Metro Rail work has narrowed the Perumbakkam Main Road, including this junction. As a result, the “nozzle” of Nookampalayam Main Road letting traffic into Perumbakkam Main Road is sticky and sluggish. A senior traffic police officer on the ground remarks that this situation has to be lived with till Metro Rail work runs its course. “Unlike at the junctions on Anna Salai, it is not possible to close the right turn from Nookamaplayam Main Road into Perumbakkam Main Road and make a compulsory left turn followed by a U-turn to make the traffic free-flowing. Perumbakkam Main Road is a narrow road made narrower by the Metro Rail work. That option therefore is non-existent,” he says.

But some measure should be available to ameliorate the situation? The officer observes that when schools close for summer, there would be a temporary respite. This problem can be fully and reasonably resolved only when Metro Rail work is completed on this section, he adds.