CHENNAI: Motorists travelling from the northern parts of the city towards Egmore or Purasawalkam can now reach their destination much faster as HR and CE Minister P K Sekar Babu inaugurated the one-way stretch of the bidirectional Road Over Bridge (ROB) at Elephant Gate on Friday. This stretch would cater to vehicles arriving from Wall Tax Road to the Raja Muthiah Road near Nehru Stadium. Official sources said the remaining part of the ROB is expected to be completed within two to three weeks.
The reconstruction work of the old ROB at Elephant Gate commenced more than three years ago and has been causing heavy vehicular traffic in several parts of North Chennai. Motorists from Basin Bridge and other areas had to take a detour of 1.5 to 2 km to reach Periamet, Egmore, or Chintadripet to access the rest of the city. The partially-built ROB will cut the travel time by 15 to 20 minutes during peak hours, said residents.
The four-lane and 520-metre-long ROB was jointly built by the railways and the city corporation. While the civic body allocated Rs 30.78 crore for constructing service lanes with footpaths on both sides covering 364.23 metres, the railways allocated Rs 40.48 crore for building a 156.12-metre section of the ROB using steel girders.
An official from the Chennai railway division said, “Due to reconstruction, the length of the ROB above railway tracks has been increased from 50 to 156 metres, allowing accommodation of more railway lines. Now, more trains can move between the tracks without hindrance.”
The century-old Elephant Gate ROB was closed to four-wheeler traffic in 2017 after it developed cracks. Two-wheeler movement was also restricted from November 2019. The work which commenced in August 2020, however, got delayed due to round-the-clock train operations and issues in relocating utilities such as electrical cables and pipelines on the approach roads.
Rs 30cr
Chennai city corporation, for its part, allocated Rs 30.78 crore for the construction of service lanes with footpaths on both sides of the ROB, covering 364.23 metres