Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Monday inaugurated the second wing of the Rangarajapuram flyover, which was completed recently.
She had declared open the first wing of the flyover last year, and had asked officials to speed up work on the second wing of the project. Now that the flyover is open, officials have decided to experiment with traffic patterns on the flyover, leading to confusion among the local residents.
Jayalalithaa inaugurated the completed Y-shaped flyover through videoconferencing from the Secretariat, marking the completion of a project that was delayed for years due to a number of factors such as land acquisition and contractor delays.
Municipal Administration and Water Supply Minister KP Munusamy, Social Welfare Minister B Valarmathi, Tourism Minister Gokula Indira, Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi, Corporation Commissioner D Karthikeyan and other senior officials were present on the occasion.
The Rangarajapuram Flyover had been envisioned by the previous Chennai Corporation administration to carry traffic both ways between Rangarajapuram and the Usman Road – Bazullah Road intersection. But officials say they are to experiment with the traffic patterns on the flyover. They say the intention is to keep traffic on the flyover one-way, with the direction alternating during the rush hours. However, this has caused confusion among the residents of West Mambalam, Rangarajapuram and Kodambakkam. “What was the point in constructing a Y-shaped flyover then?” asks S Abishek, a resident of Jubilee Road.
“The roads on the Mambalam and Kodambakkam ends of the flyover are narrow to handle the traffic anyway. It is just going to become messy if the direction of traffic is going to be alternated,” he adds.
Others say the flyover’s original plan was more suited to easing congestion in the area.
“The original plan was to have one-way traffic on two arms and two-way traffic on the Usman Road end. That makes more sense as there will not be any congestion. This area sees congestion in both directions during the rush hours. So, I don’t see how this experiment is going to help,” says D Kothandaraman, a resident of United India Colony. But officials say such experiments with traffic flow patterns are common and if the results are unfavourable, the decision would be reversed.