Delay in completion of 4 flyovers causes traffic snarls across city

Projects to construct four flyover works on the arterial roads in the city have been progressing at a snail’s pace and causing traffic snarls at crucial junctions during peak hours. 

Work on four flyovers— Velachery at Vijayanagar junction, Pallavaram on GST Road, CMBT on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai and Retteri junction— began between September 2015 and February 2017. The projects were scheduled to be completed between 18 months and 33 months, but none of them is even close to being completed.

The Metro wing of the State Highways Department, which is carrying out the works, cited various reasons including delay in the land acquisition, heavy traffic hindering works and limited clearance given by the traffic police for the delay.

The work on the Velachery twin flyover began at an estimated cost of Rs 92 crore in January 2016. It was supposed to ease traffic flow in the Vijayanagar junction, linking Velachery Main Road, Velachery Bypass Road, Taramani Link Road and GST Road.

An official of the Highways department said that even after shifting the utilities, the work near the junction could not be taken up due to a court case over acquiring a1,300 square meter plot. “There was a dispute with the landowner’s family, but we will make the payment for the land in the court by June end and will be able to complete the flyover in another six months,” the official said.

As per the plan, one flyover will start at Velachery Bypass Road and end near the Velachery MRTS station, the other will connect Taramani Link Road to the Bypass Road. The second flyover will go over the first one at a height of 13 metres at the junction. Both flyovers will have two lanes and will be unidirectional.

To ease traffic along three junctions including Alstom signal, Pallavaram Sandai Road and Kundrathur Road, the Highways department began to construct a three-lane unidirectional Pallavaram flyover on Grand Southern Trunk (GST) Road in September 2015, with close to Rs 69 crore.

The project which runs at a 11-month delay was hit by heavy movement of vehicles and also the volume of work. “It is a 1.5 km long flyover. The volume of work is high compared to other flyovers. 

We have completed 80 per cent of work in one of the busiest stretches in the city,” the official said, adding that the flyover work is being undertaken without affecting the traffic. “We hope to complete the work around November,” the official said. 

Twenty-five months after the work on the flyover at CMBT on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai began, the Highways department is able to complete only 50 per cent of the works owing to the restriction made by the traffic police allow work only at night.

“We were allowed to work only between 11 pm and 6 am as there is around the clock heavy traffic movement in the stretch which houses Mofussil bus terminus and the omni bus stand beside the Koyambedu vegetable market,” the official associated with the flyover works said. 

The four-lane bi-directional flyover which is being constructed at a cost of Rs 93.5 crore would allow the vehicles to avoid two signals at CMBT and Kaliamman Koil Street junctions. “We are planning to complete the flyover work by the December end and other works including approach road by the March next year,” the official said. 

The work on the second flyover at the Retteri junction on Jawaharlal Nehru Salai is expected to be completed by December this year. The Rs 41.07-crore uni-directional flyover, that will allow traffic from Madhavaram to the Padi side, will be 1,320 metres long.

“The work was delayed due to delay in the shifting of utility lines,” the official said, adding that traffic movement would ease after the completion of work on the span near the Perambur Paper Mills Road. “We have completed 60 per cent of work and will complete the rest by the end of this year,” the official said.