With a stretch of Mill Road being closed for drainage work since Monday, there has been a call from commuters and urban planners to reopen Brookebond Road to two-way traffic and improve Shastri Road and Sengupta Road in Ramnagar to create an alternate route to the western part of the city. The current road diversion makes commuters take at least five times more time to cross the Sukrawarpet stretch than usual.
On Wednesday night and Thursday morning during peak hours, almost a 100 vehicles came to a standstill on a small 200m stretch of Nawab Hakim (NH) Road, between Mill Road junction and Variety Hall Road junction, for almost seven minutes. Vehicles could only inch forward along the stretch.
According to the new road diversion, all vehicles heading towards Mettupalayam Road, Saibaba Colony and R S Puram, have to take a left turn into NH Road once they descend from the flyover, take another right into Variety Hall Road, cross Oppanakara Road junction and then take a left into Rangai Gowder (RG) Street before rejoining Mill Road.
However, the diversion which was once the routine road taken a little over a year ago has been seeing major traffic blocks for the past three days. "Since the NH Road-Variety Hall Road junction is three-way, the traffic cop there in an aim to direct traffic, keeps blocking off any of the two roads. This leads to a major traffic pile up," said Prashanth Jain, a resident of R S Puram. " However, we face another traffic jam because the Variety Hall Road- Oppanakara Street four-road junction also has a traffic cop there stopping cars and causing a traffic pile up," said another commuter, Kunal Gupta.
As a result, crossing the 2.5 km stretch, which should take hardly three minutes, ends up taking almost 15 minutes by car. With Brookebond Road being a one-way street, the only alternate route is through Shastri Road and Sengupta Road. "This road is also narrow and Nanjappa Road is congested now," said Gupta.
The Coimbatore corporation commissioner K Vijayakarthikeyan says the work to replace the underground drainage pipelines on the road will take at least another six days. "Pipes are completely being replaced for a stretch of 130m and it will be a long term solution," Vijayakarthikeyan said. The road has been closed due to overflowing drainage almost three times in the last one year. Police commissioner, Amal Raj said he was looking at other alternate traffic solutions for the next six days.
On Wednesday night and Thursday morning during peak hours, almost a 100 vehicles came to a standstill on a small 200m stretch of Nawab Hakim (NH) Road, between Mill Road junction and Variety Hall Road junction, for almost seven minutes. Vehicles could only inch forward along the stretch.
According to the new road diversion, all vehicles heading towards Mettupalayam Road, Saibaba Colony and R S Puram, have to take a left turn into NH Road once they descend from the flyover, take another right into Variety Hall Road, cross Oppanakara Road junction and then take a left into Rangai Gowder (RG) Street before rejoining Mill Road.
However, the diversion which was once the routine road taken a little over a year ago has been seeing major traffic blocks for the past three days. "Since the NH Road-Variety Hall Road junction is three-way, the traffic cop there in an aim to direct traffic, keeps blocking off any of the two roads. This leads to a major traffic pile up," said Prashanth Jain, a resident of R S Puram. " However, we face another traffic jam because the Variety Hall Road- Oppanakara Street four-road junction also has a traffic cop there stopping cars and causing a traffic pile up," said another commuter, Kunal Gupta.
As a result, crossing the 2.5 km stretch, which should take hardly three minutes, ends up taking almost 15 minutes by car. With Brookebond Road being a one-way street, the only alternate route is through Shastri Road and Sengupta Road. "This road is also narrow and Nanjappa Road is congested now," said Gupta.
The Coimbatore corporation commissioner K Vijayakarthikeyan says the work to replace the underground drainage pipelines on the road will take at least another six days. "Pipes are completely being replaced for a stretch of 130m and it will be a long term solution," Vijayakarthikeyan said. The road has been closed due to overflowing drainage almost three times in the last one year. Police commissioner, Amal Raj said he was looking at other alternate traffic solutions for the next six days.