Chennai: Traffic woes worsen, cops clueless

Chennai: Roads from Mandaiveli right up to Adyar and Raj Bhavan Road choked through Thursday evening even as Chennai continues to suffer traffic snarls due to rise in vehicle population, dismal policing and bad driving habits.

“I reached home in Nilangarai late by more than two hours as the police diverted my car away from the usual route through the Raj Bhavan Road and the OMR, and sent us roaming along the Foreshore Estate and Adyar. I had a miserable time with pain in the filled bladder. I am sure many senior citizens like me would have gone through similar hell”, said an elder Chennaiite, adding, “I dread to think what would have happened if someone is very sick and in ambulance”.

Police said the present problem arose due to the digging of trenches by the electricity board to lay underground lines before the onset of the northeast monsoon. “EB engineers have dug up trenches in many places along the Adyar-Mandaiveli-Mylapore stretch. This has resulted in traffic difficulties that extend to larger areas on both the sides”, explained a senior traffic official.“We have requested the EB to hasten the work. The Deepavali rush is adding to the woes”, he added.

But apart from the EB works and the festival rush, there is much that the government—particularly the police department—needs to do for improving the traffic management in Greater Chennai. The huge spending on modernisation of the police force does not seem to have really percolated down to helping the common man. 

“Take for example our road signals. Any decent signaling system should ensure that you pass through the green signals on a given stretch without halts, but in reality we are forced to stop at every signal. It’s worse if there are no signals and policemen are managing manually as they take their own time stopping one flow to allow the other side; this is most visible at the signals at Adyar, Madhya Kailash and Tidel Park”, said T. Sangeetha, IT professional.