Saturday, Apr 30, 2005
Saturday, Apr 30, 2005 |
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Chennai
When the Chennai City Traffic Police banned the movement of heavy vehicles on the Grand South Trunk Road and Mount-Poonamallee Road during peak hours early this week, they said it was the first step towards decongesting important roads and intersections leading to the city. From Tambaram, the heavy vehicles are allowed to take the Velachery-Tambaram Road and Taramani to reach the port while from Kumaran Chavadi, they can continue along Poonamallee High Road into the city. The arrangement primarily benefits the Kathipara junction in Guindy and the stretch in front of the airport. Goods carriers, the traffic police said, had flexible timings. Keeping them off the road in peak hours would benefit free movement of vehicles carrying students, office-goers and businessmen to their destinations. The residents of the suburbs readily welcomed the move but they say the traffic police will now have to bring order to the suburban roads. These are small measures, if taken in the context of the department's present jurisdictional area. The Chennai City Traffic Police, which controlled traffic in 170 square kilometres of the core city, now finds itself with another 1,000-odd square kilometres of the Chennai Metropolitan Area. The traffic wing had 1,800 police personnel earlier. The annexure of the suburban stations has brought in another 45 personnel. "We will get more men soon," says K.C. Mahali, Joint Commissioner of Police-Traffic. "Our priority is to ease traffic movement and bring down fatal accidents." He, however, agrees that a comprehensive traffic management plan does not exist. "We can take only one step at a time," he added. The diversion of heavy vehicular traffic will definitely have an impact on the flow of traffic on GST Road, feels V. Santhanam, president, Federation of Civic and Welfare Associations of Pallavaram. The news of the regulation, however, is yet to reach far and wide. In the absence of check posts at the entry points to the city, several lorries enter the city through the banned routes only to be caught at intersections by the traffic police, said Venkatesan, the driver of a sand lorry. Traffic regulations are only short term steps, said T. Anantharajan, a retired professor of urban systems who has done several studies on the city and its suburbs. "The suburbs need a good network of roads. Every three-kilometre interval should have a network of radial, ring or grid pattern of roads to facilitate distribution of traffic." The suburbs, for the past three decades, have developed with very little concern for traffic flow. The new roads laid recently lacked planning and concern for the environment. The link road between Pallavaram and Old Mahabalipuram Road, for example, cuts through the Pallikaranai marsh and the Pallavaram Periya Eri Lake leaving no channel for water flow. "They could have provided some conduits or built a bridge over the water bodies. Velachery is now flooded during every monsoon due to the backflow from the marsh," Dr. Anantharajan said. Only a comprehensive traffic planning, beginning with formation of extensive network of roads, can be a permanent solution, he added. Traffic regulations can at best be short-term measures.
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