Curious case of 3 one-ways on Venkatnarayana Road

Curious case of 3 one-ways on Venkatnarayana Road

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:16.11.2021

Thanks to unnecessary one-way routes on streets and arterial routes branching out of Venkatnarayana road, motorists are forced to take a detour through different lanes to access the main road. Adding to their woes are several encroachments on these oneway stretches leading to a bottleneck on the 1.3-kilometre long Venkatnaryana Road in T Nagar.

Motorists are unable to directly access the Usman Road junction from Venkatnarayana Road, where the one-way portion of Burkit road has taken over by illegal parking of share autos, cars and trucks. They are required to take a diversion via Dhandhapani Street resulting in traffic snarls on Venkatnarayana Road-Dhandapani Street junction.

The situation is no different on Venkatnarayana Road-Anna Salai route. Here motorists must take a diversion from Mooparappan Street to reach Anna Salai which again leads to a traffic jam at Link Road. On this stretch too a 100-metre portion of the Sivaganam Street has been converted into a one-way. However, the encroached space leads to people taking a longer distance and avoiding the oneway.

“If the one-way portion on Burkit Road is being converted into a two-way, the travel time will reduce to just five minutes. I fail to understand why this route has been partially one-way for several years. If the road converts into a two-way, the illegal parking space for share autos will have to go,” said C Munusamy, an auto driver at T Nagar who takes 10-30 minutes to travel between Venkatnarayana Road and Usman Road.

When contacted, Mambalam traffic police said that action will be initiated against illegal parking on Burkit Road. “The reason for having one-ways was allowing twoway traffic in all four directions. Instead, these are resulting in a vehicle pile-up," a traffic cop said.