Velachery-Tharamani Road, a nightmare!

CHENNAI: Velachery has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade. Having once been considered an inconvenient locality outside the city, it is now a bustling residential and commercial hub driven by the IT Highway nearby. Even as property prices and the area’s profile continue to rise, the Velachery-Tharamani Road, that is Velachery’s portal to the IT Highway, is in shambles, thanks to a disrupted road-widening project.The 3.6 km stretch from the Vijayanagar Bus Terminus to the SRP Tools signal is a badly bruised and busy road that would take around 20 minutes to traverse during rush hour. If the road alone was not bad enough to stall traffic, share autos and buses that ply like they have heard of no such thing as road rules ensure that commuters get their daily dose of chaos.“I have lived here for close to a decade. When we moved here, we used to dread taking the Velachery-Tharamani Road to work during the monsoon season. It used to be under a deluge of water. There isn’t that much water stagnation now, but there is a deluge of vehicles running around haphazardly,” says Gomathi Ravi, a senior professional whose workplace is on OMR.When this reporter rode down the road there was little left to imagination as to why the Velachery-Tharamani is considered a nightmare. A divider cuts the road leaving around 20 feet for traffic on one side and around 50 feet on the other. Another 30-40 feet lies vacant along the entire stretch.This, along with the near-lunar state of the road, leaves only the absolute middle of the road where the still-speeding and skullduggerously driven buses and share autos stop to take on or drop off commuters. No police personnel were present on the stretch to regulate the traffic.“We changed our shop timings to ensure our employees did not have to travel to work through this mess,” says Saravanan, the owner of a computer store, pointing out from his window. “This works for us. We open shop by 10am and shut late. That’s the only way we can commute without developing high BP,” he adds.