Tanushree Guchhait, an advertising professional and a regular commuter, wonders how private cars can steal all the road space and delay buses carrying hundreds of passengers. She sees a minimum of 500 cars delaying 20-30 buses in city roads during her two-hour, Tambaram-to-Mylapore bus journey.
Guchhait is one of thousands of bus commuters who rush to reach their offices in the city starting atleast 2-2.5 hours in advance from their homes. A recent study found that in a city where up to 70% of all traffic comes from two wheelers, many higher incomes groups own more than one car.
The same study found that over 1.50 lakh vehicles move every day between Nandanam and LIC on Anna Salai. Some 17 locations have been observed to be traffic hot points — where traffic flow is on the rise. Chennai Central, Poonamallee high road, Anna Salai and Jawaharlal Nehru High road are some of them. Anna Salai near DMS and Nandanam have the highest traffic density.
Chennai, however, is not all that bad, compared to other metros, says a senior professor of Transportation Engineering at Anna University. He says that the connectivity of public transport is comparitively better in Chennai. “Promotion of public transport and providing rush-free services in all the major routes will be the only solution to regulate the increasing rate of city traffic, where total vehicle registration crosses 1,000 per day,” he said. For instance, Anna Salai is designed for only 60,000 car movements a day, but the actual volume is three times more.
More News: timesofindia
