Highways department study feasibility of elevated roads to decongest city

The State Highways Department is set to complete a detailed feasibility study on its ambitious proposal to decongest the city roads with a mix of elevated roads and link roads.

To decongest the city roads, the department has proposed to construct a bund road along the Adyar River from Thiru Vi Ka Bridge to Maraimalai Adigalar Bridge at Saidapet. It also proposed three elevated stretches from the Halda junction to Light House via Sardar Patel Road, Adyar, Greenways Road and Santhome High Road. An elevated road will connect Chinnamalai with Velachery Bypass while another will take off at Vadapalani and land at Porur.

“Already we have appointed a consultant to prepare a detailed feasibility report which is in the final stages of completion. We are expecting the feasibility report by March this year,” said a senior highways department official. The official added that, after the completion of the feasibility study, they would go for the detailed project report preparation.

With the scope for widening those roads being mere impossible, the official said that the only alternative to decongest those arterial stretches is through elevated roads. “Only after the feasibility report, we will know whether the proposed elevated roads are viable or not. As Chennai Metro Rail’s phase II work is under way, some of the elevated stretches will have alignment issues which need to be sorted out,” the official said.

Apart from the elevated roads and the new Adyar river bund road, the highways department also studying the feasibility of constructing a flyover at Ambattur Telephone Exchange, Basin Bridge junction on Wall Tax Road and Ambedkar Collge at Vysarpadi.