Vidya Rajaram's Blogspace

Chennai Traffic - Is it slowly going the Blore way ?

No , I did not mean people travelling towards bangalore. Iam talking about the traffic that is slowly increasing here everyday.....Reminds me of my days in Bangalore :(

I live close to Sutherland in Velachery and my office is in Alwarpet.....The standard route that I take is Home -Vijayanagar terminus -100 feet road - Concorde Motors Junction -Anna University - Kottur- Alwarpet.

Generally , there is a lot of traffic on the other side of the road in the morning ( with the IT corridor , this road is usually hounded by buses of all shapes , sizes , colors and companies ). But, for the past few days I see an increase in the amount of traffic on this side of the road also.

Two particular areas I want to talk about which are always crowded and jammed with traffic :

1. The Vijayanagar Checkpost Stretch : There are a couple of places here where vehicles can take a turn to go in adjoining lanes....there is no median on the road....So you can imagine the way people would drive during rush hour....About 2-3 days back , there was a bus which was coming from the opposite direction - it was taking a right turn into a road...A bus from this side tired overtaking this bus ...and it created chaos...Traffic was stuck for about 15 minutes !!
2. Then there is the Vijayanagar Junction : Oh , Do I need to mention ? Its like a circle with roads splitting in all directions and you have vehicles lined up for 2-3 kms at times.....I pity the pedestrians who try to cross these roads....

And I thought its probably only these roads that have problems and that too at times..... Nowadays , in chennai you have about 7 radio stations - all of them have traffic updates at regular intervals. I suggest that you tune into these stations - to get a hang of the amount of traffic jams happening in the city even on broad roads during non-peak hours....Gosh !

Oh , I almost forgot to mention what got me to blog on this ! This morning on Kottur Bridge ( The overbridge just after Anna University ) there was apparently (Coz I did not see it...just heard it from the people there ) a dead body. Some good soul called the Fire Engines (!!??) and a couple of them landed up with the police...... So the overbridge gets jammed.....and that jams the roads adjoining the bridge !! And I ended up taking 50 minutes to cross that stretch ( Anna University to Kottur Signal ).

Whoops ! I just hope this place does not become another Bangalore in terms of traffic !

posted by Vidya Rajaram @ 10/10/2006 02:18:00 PM