Gateways to Chennai become gridlocks

Chennai: Think twice before hitting the highways this Tuesday as you might get stuck in a horrid gridlock. Three consecutive holidays beginning Saturday caused the clogging of all the outbound roads by vehicles of all sizes and shapes rushing thousands of Chennaiites to their native places. With several frustrated motorists seen swearing in road rage, the holiday mood appears to be fast evaporating on the humid roads.

Apart from the usual frustration-point Koyambedu, bottlenecks were found at Maduravoyal, Tambaram bus terminus, Irumbuliyur signal, Perungalathur, Vandalur, Urapakkam and Gudavancherry. “Roads were accessible only after 3am on Saturday morning. It took more than four hours to cross the 12-kilometre stretch from Tambaram to Guduvancherry,” said C. Satish, a distraught IT professional heading for Erode.

Apart from the increased holiday traffic, the non-deployment of sufficient police personnel, encroachments on roads and the incompleteness of the outer ring road near Vandalur are major reasons for the GST congestion. "Not just the private buses, even the government buses can be seen haphazardly parked eating away the road space", said V Santhanam of the Traffic and Transportation Forum.

Supporting his anguish is the sight of government buses blocking GST at the Tambaram sanitarium bus stand, which can easily accommodate 26 buses. Only six buses were found inside when this correspondent visited the place while several buses were parked on the road outside, with their crew canvassing passengers. “If we ask the bus drivers not to park on the roads, they will resort to agitations and strikes”, said a traffic constable, adding, “Besides, we have a serious manpower shortage”.

Traffic at Perungaluthur gets snail-paced as buses from Tambaram and Koyambedu converge at this point. Social activists feel that vehicles from Koyambedu should be diverted to Sriperambudur or Chengalpet to reach the GST Road, rather than letting them choke Perungalathur.

“Road over bridge works add to the congestion. The road is too narrow to accommodate the growing vehicle population,” said C. Ramachandran, a Tambaram resident.

“I regret taking the road to Madurai. The traffic congestion has taken away my holiday mood,” said B. Prem Kumar, a motorist at Vandalur. “Volunteers should be roped in to clear the encroachments on roads. Situation is going to be worse for Vijayadashami as it falls on a weekend too,” he added.