CHENNAI: The 450m stretch of Anna Salai between LIC Metro Station and three famous restaurants — Bilal, Buhari, and Dindigul Thalappakatti near Tarapore Towers — has turned into a daily bottleneck, with traffic crawling, piling up in both directions. Commuters say it’s been this way for over three years, mainly due to valet parking outside one restaurant and vehicles parked outside another squeezing the road down to a fraction of its motorway.
“This issue has been going on for more than three years. In the evenings, the stretch becomes a nightmare. It takes a minimum of 15-20 minutes to cross barely 200m between the metro station and Bilal during peak hours,” said M Kowshika (33) of Teynampet.
On the opposite road, vehicles coming in from the Wallajah Road junction hit a second bottleneck near Buhari and Dindigul Thalappakatti where the cars parked outside the restaurants narrowed the road further till LIC Metro Station. There are other small eateries near the restaurants which add to the problem.
A Arun (29), a Kodambakkam resident who travels by MTC bus, said the ride home can take far longer than it should. “On certain evenings, the bus takes a very long time to travel from the Omandurar hospital bus stop to the LIC bus stop. On weekends, it is the worst,” he said.
During TNIE’s visit to both stretches, there were two main chokepoints — valet parking at Bilal and vehicles parked right at the entrance of Buhari and Dindigul Thalappakatti on the opposite side.
P Kirubakaran (44) of Egmore, a regular at the restaurants, blames the valet operations. “At Bilal, vehicles being taken for valet parking and those being handed over are the main reasons for the traffic problems,” he said.
Vehicles stopping mid-road to drop off or pick up passengers add to the problem, forcing other motorists to halt and cause tailbacks. Police personnel are deployed to manage traffic in the area, but commuters say it hasn’t made much of a difference. When TNIE checked with the three restaurants, all of them had similar responses. The staff at Bilal said that they are trying to manage the traffic with security personnel and valet parking, but some “big shots” proceed to park their cars on the road and enter the restaurants, and others too follow the same.
Buhari management said a new ‘U turn’ outside their entrance has aggravated the issue. Posting additional police personnel and ensuring one of them stays right outside would help in dealing with the traffic, they added. Dindigul Thalappakatti management said that the vehicles of their customers are being properly managed and that the problem was with vehicles of those going to eat at nearby eateries. A senior police officer told TNIE that the department plans to act against the restaurants directly.