Chennai: The state committee on road connectivity and traffic management in 2008 listed out several recommendations to ease Chennai traffic. Similarly, a CMDA committee in 2007 studied building violations in T Nagar and parking woes in central Chennai. Ten years have passed on since then but the state and city civic authorities are yet to implement several recommendations and have left Chennai more congested and choking to death.
According to CMDA sources, the density pattern of Chennai during early 2000 had the highest gross density of 247 persons per hectare, whereas the average gross density in suburban parts of Chennai was only 59 persons per hectare.
The gross density in most of the municipal areas and town Panchayats was low and infrastructure projects worth over Rs 6,000 crore were mooted, but most of the projects are yet to get off the ground.
The projects include construction of multi-storey parking lots at Panagal Park, T. Nagar, MUC Ground, Government Estate, Anna Salai, Adyar-Gandhi Nagar bus stand and T Nagar bus terminal and Broadway.
Years have passed and not a single parking lot has been constructed by the state authorities till now, sources said. Similarly, minor recommendations like redeeming the existing footpaths from encroachments, flag-posts, hoardings, hawkers, shops, places of worship, eat-outs were recommended.
Again this has failed big time due to an inefficient drive against encroachment.
Providing safe passage for cyclists through dedicated cycle tracks was also planned and again this has been a non-starter, sources said.
Besides the major monorail project, even grade separator works and flyovers at Madhya Kailash, LB road, Konnur High road, New Avadi Road, Kilpauk Garden Road and Nandanam remain only on paper, sources said. It was during the DMK tenure that efforts were taken to decongest T. Nagar and Purasawalkam commercial areas.
Bridges were constructed, but we followed these recommendations and implemented a few of them, but the AIADMK had pickled the recommendations making Chennai choke under traffic snarls and congestion, said Saidapet MLA and former Chennai mayor M Subramanian.
