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Paying heed to the need of commuters facing threat due to rash driving across arterial roads, the state highways department has been setting up medians in a portion of Madurai road here in the past two days. The road safety mechanism aimed at streamlining the flow of vehicles was established as part of the department’s initiative to check encroachments on either end of the Madurai road which has bi-directional traffic.
Highways department sources said that the 14-metre-wide road will get concrete medians at an estimated cost of Rs 45 lakh. The road branches off from Prabhat roundabout and runs for 1.4 kms till Syed Murtaza government school. Since it is one of the widest roads in the city, shops dotting the stretch on either ends have been encroaching on the road. Welcoming the installation of medians, road safety member M Sekaran said, “Road safety council will press for more such medians at plausible places. Medians can certainly prevent encroachments by keeping the motorable space available.”
Other arterial stretches in the city including Rockins road, Thillai Nagar and Cauvery bridge — that are in dire need of medians — are yet to be considered by the department for installing it. “At the recent road safety meeting organised by the district administration, we were instructed to install medians on a stretch of Madurai road to streamline the traffic flow and to keep encroachments at bay,” an official with highways department said.
Besides curbing the encroachments, road safety members also pointed out that haphazard parking of vehicles over and along the important roads would come down to an extent with the bifurcation of Madurai road through medians. Apart from Madurai road, sources said that Thanjavur road might get medians after the completion of the proposed road extension works yet to be taken up on the stretch.

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