CHENNAI: Pedestrians struggling to cross the busy GST Road to get access to East Tambaram and West Tambaram, now have something to cheer as the feasibility study by the Highways department, has suggested a 500 metre-skywalk cum foot overbridge, connecting East Tambaram to West Tambaram, at a cost of Rs 71 crore.
This comes as there is no direct connectivity between East and West Tambaram. The proposed skywalk will connect the East near MCC College and the West near SETC Bus Stop. Pedestrians currently use the existing railway foot overbridge (FoB), which is congested and some people cross the railway tracks, risking their lives.
According to a survey, the maximum pedestrian volume in the area per hour works out to be 3,072, i.e, 51 pedestrians per minute. It is learnt that the feasibility study has taken into consideration, an average population rise of 1.2 per cent for the next 20 years and calculated that by the next two decades, the pedestrian population will rise to 3,900 in the area per hour, which is 65 pedestrians per minute. As such, the width of foot overbridge is worked out at five metres, as per Indian Road Congress guidelines. Since the major skywalk portion falls on the railway portion, the concurrence of the alignment was obtained from Southern Railways in January this year.
The proposed skywalk, which will connect with the existing FoB at Tambaram Railway Station, will eliminate conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles and reduce traffic congestion.
To be built in three phases, the phase-1 will include the highways area of 41.30 metre and the second phase involves railway area of 318.70 metres. The third phase involves 186.70 metre railway area above track.