Chennai: The high profile IT corridor, touted as Chennai’s expressway connecting southern Chennai with Mahabalipuram, the most planned and developed road in early 2000 that promised speed and hassle free drive is losing its purpose. The irony is that Taramani and Madhya Kailash, the nerve centre of IT corridor for which road expansion was done acquiring private properties, is again the most congested junction, where motorists are forced to wait for five to 10 minutes to cross the stretch.
Not only junctions, the entire stretch attracts heavy traffic because of unregulated development and IT companies that have come up along the corridor. The service lanes are now an eyesore with uneven and broken tiles, making it a hard drive for motorists.
According to local police sources, the boom in cab industry also added to the peak hour traffic. The similar office timings of IT companies are another reason for the growing traffic snarl.
A. Vijay, a cab driver who operates along the expressway every day, said that they face the traffic snarls every day and the situation will get better only if a flyover is constructed along the IT expressway. Most of the cabs have to travel the stretch till Tidel Park signal to take a U-turn and so traffic concentration becomes high during peak hours near Tidel Park.
Bharath R, who works in an IT company, said that to ease traffic public transportation facilities should be improved.
What do commuters want?
The commuters of IT Expressway want a right turn towards Adyar. This will avoid them going all the way to IIT to take a U-turn which clogs the traffic under the flyover.
A flyover or a subway at Taramani will ease and divert traffic, feel commuters. Though there are foot-over-bridges along the IT expressway they are not sufficient. More foot overbridges are required at regular intervals for pedestrians to cross the expressway without jay walking.
