Concrete median causes hardship to pedestrians

Chennai: The IT corridor developed a decade ago promising world class standards to accommodate increasing traffic and existing pedestrian population on the OMR stretch has now failed to benefit the stakeholders, motorists and local pedestrians.

The much hyped road is now a nightmare for pedestrians as they are forced to cross amid zooming vehicles illegally or jump over a concrete median when they cross legally.

Hundreds of pedestrians using the OMR stretch rue that the only legal crossing on the road at Dollar signal has put them into hardship as a three feet concrete median was built on the service road recently forcing them to either jump over the median or walk for about 1 kilometer to cross the road.

“As this is one of the busiest signals on the stretch, the median was built recently in a bid to reduce vehicular congestion on the service road. The junction is also one the arterial bus stops where many IT employees and workers deboard. They were not taken into consideration while building the median,” said Senthil Kumar, an activist.

There were instances when people trying to jump over the median amid zipping vehicles slipped and missed fatal accidents by an inch. Pedestrians say a major accident is awaiting the area.

When contacted, the zonal officer of the area failed to give reasons for the construction of median and that he would take the issue to senior officials.