The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Proposed elevated roads in Chennai a boon or bane?

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Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Proposed elevated roads in Chennai a boon or bane?

A. Srivathsan

Protests question the plans, premise, results promised and the cost involved

— Photo: V.GANESAN

Differences persist: The proposed elevated roads along the banks of the Adyar, Cooum and the Buckingham canal have evoked mixed response.

CHENNAI: Like the buildings within the city, roads in Chennai too are set to grow vertically.

Elevated roads are proposed along the beach up to Kottivakam and along the banks of the Adyar, Cooum and the Buckingham canal. They will be built in multiple tiers, fly as high as 18 m - the height of a six storeyed building - and facilitate vehicles to ply at a speed of about 70 km per hour.

The view from the window may be good, but will it solve the problem on the ground, ask many residents and experts.

Protests question the plans, premise, results promised and the cost involved. The government, however, thinks the city, has only 2,780 km length of road network and in order to increase it, there is no other option but to go vertical.

In takes almost an hour to travel from Guindy to a work place at the farthest end of Mount Road on a working day morning. The milestone reads the distance to be covered as only 11 km. If one chooses to travel by bus, the door-to-door travel time is even longer and it is the least comfortable of the modes. Cycle tracks are non-existent.

“The proposed elevated roads will increase the surface area of roads and take the traffic that is heading out of the city quickly to the arteries. This will relieve the internal roads and ease the flow,” says M.S.Srinivasan, Adviser (Roads) with the Adyar Poonga Trust, which has planned the elevated road along the Adyar. “Dedicated bus lanes proposed along these links will also help.”

Traffic issue

Attempts to organise Chennai’s traffic and transport started as early as 1968. The plans prepared in 1974 predicted that by 1991 about 80 per cent of trips undertaken within the city would be using public transport. The plans also promised that the roads would be decongested. This has not been happened yet. The Chennai master plan published in 2008 states that still 65 per cent of trips made use of private transport and this contributes to the congestion of roads. “Proposed projects do not work in tandem with the overall city plan. The city is dense and congested and unless this is disbursed to the suburbs, as the second master plan envisages, the proposed roads will not be of much help. The effective solution would be to invest and improve connectivity to and within the suburbs,” suggests K.P. Subramanian, retired professor, Department of Urban Systems Engineering, Anna University.

However, K. Phanindra Reddy, member secretary of the Adyar Poonga Trust, says while long-term goals are important, short and mid-term goals that include immediate relief to the city also need to be addressed.”

Residents and experts fear that the elevated road may create new problems. For example, they fear that the elevated road along the beach will flood the Marina with vehicles and spoil it. Similarly, the touch-down points along the Adyar corridor too will create chaos at key junctions, they apprehend.

“Problems being addressed”

Sources at the CMDA told The Hindu that this has been raised with Wilbur Smith Associates, consultant for all elevated road projects proposed by various departments. Mr. Reddy explains that the proposals have been scrutinised by various technical committees and the consultant has been asked to address the issues with abundant care.

Identifying pockets of land along the elevated corridors for real estate development and partly funding the road projects is part of the project conception.

Residents along the Adyar, who will be displaced by these projects, want to know why the priority is on creating commercial real estate instead of building houses for the displaced poor. Mr. Reddy assures that all apprehensions and suggestions made by the stake-holders will be taken care of.

K. Sarvanan of the Urur Kuppam also complains of anti-poor orientation of the proposed projects. “They serve the car-owning public at the expense of fishermen. We will be displaced and our livelihood affected. The government did not make any effort to consult us and we will not cooperate with the government.”

Those against the project have a long list of environmental violations to complain about starting from the impact on the Adyar Creek to violating the Coastal Regulation Zone norms.

Mark Selvaraj, transportation engineer, is concerned that that automobile-related pollutants that would settle along the roads would be flushed during rain and drained straight into the river affecting aquatic life. Mr. Reddy quickly responds and explains that it is being addressed.

“Why locate elevated roads that guarantee high-speed travel within the city and in close proximity to residential areas ? Why spoil the beautiful beaches that are our assets ? Why there are no such commitments towards pedestrians and pubic transport,” asks Shanthi Krishnan of the Kalakshetra Colony Welfare Association.

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