Roads widening helps only parking

Meanwhile, road widening activities, aimed at addressing the increasing traffic congestion, are on in full-swing across a few arterial roads in the city. However, hours after the roads are widened, the extended portions have been getting usurped mostly by cars and heavy vehicles for parking. Thus, the very purpose of expanding the congested roads is defeated besides leading to a waste of the money spent.
As part of the ongoing works, a few stretches of the city roads including Collector Office Road, Birds Road and even Royals Road were extended on either ends. The traffic still remains choked on these roads thanks to the encroachment. In the case of Collector Office Road, the stretch branching off from Major Saravanan roundabout and leading to Collector Office is plagued by haphazard parking of vehicles, mostly cars visiting a retail clothing outlet.
"Private buses are too rash while commuting on the stretch soon after the signal in roundabout turns green. Two-wheeler riders face routine risk with cars visiting a private shopping complex parked over a motorable portion of Collector Office Road," M Sivasubramanian, residing near VOC Road, said. That the road expansion was ill-planned owing to the absence of coordination with law enforcement agencies was also very evident on Royal Road dotted with hotels and banks where visitors have been parking their vehicles.
Same is the case with Birds Road connecting Bharathiyar Salai with Bharathidasan Salai. Though gravel has been filled on the stretch of Birds Road (which is to be expanded), visitors to the commercial establishment on the stretch enjoy free parking space on the road as the traffic police prefer to penalise only the helmetless riders.

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