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• Chennai roads have this unique trait to them — they believe in digesting the monsoon, rather than routing it into drains and keeping themselves clean and comfy for commuters. Their construction is such — faulty.Regimes have changed in the past two decades, but the condition of Chennai roads has remained constantly abysmal. The present spell of rains has once more laid bare the roads, exposing bad planning, poor quality and shoddy workmanship.Higher budgets have failed to yield motorable roads that last even a couple of years. Instead, the city stares at gaping potholes after every rain.
• Potholes are blamed on water stagnation, which erodes the top asphalt layer. But our road engineers never seem to answer one basic question – why not construct roads that allow a natural water run off through stormwater drains?
• “Our roads are shallow bowls that catch rainwater. Even while constructing concrete medians, no effort is made to ensure a slope. Our planners miss out on basics that a civil engineering student learns in his second year,” said P. Mahalingam, a design engineer.The recent expansion of Chennai from 174 square km to 426 square km only translates into more bad roads, not improved connectivity.“If I recall correctly, good roads in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu were last seen in the MGR era. The road-engineering unit of the state highways department that used to plan roads and ensure their quality has become defunct. There is little accountability when it comes to contractors,” said R. Narayanan, a consultant to NHAI.
• After last year’s monsoon, the corporation assigned road laying in larger chunks to big contractors to ensure quality, rather than piecemeal allocations done at the insistence of municipal councilors. But roads laid between January and March this year have failed to live up to promise.Unlike in the past when roads in posh areas such as Poes Garden, Boat Club, Besant Nagar, Nungambakkam and Anna Nagar remained unaffected, every locality has been hit this year.Road repairs in Chennai were running seven months behind schedule, first due to the model code of conduct for the Assembly and civic polls, followed by intermittent rain, corporation sources said. The pressure on city roads is very high due to the increasing vehicular traffic. At least 1,000 new vehicles are added every month, resulting in heavy wear and tear.
• “Whatever happened to the idea of introducing plastic roads? said Shafiqur Rahman, a marketing executive.Corporation commissioner D. Karthikeyan said the civic body was waiting for the monsoon to relent.“Last year, we improved roads within a short span once the rains stopped. We will soon undertake a massive drive, for which the tender work has been completed,” he said. But the question remains: How long the repairs will last.
• It’s the same sorry story on ECR too East Coast Road (ECR), the eastern gateway to the city, is a shambles. With vehicular density increasing, the rather narrow Thiruvanmiyur-Neelangarai stretch with encroachments on both sides sees regular chaos these days.Poor engineering is deteriorating the stretch by the day. On a rainy day, motorists dread to take the road and traders see slack business as water stagnates along it in the absence of stormwater drains.Pedestrians too shun the road for fear of passing vehicles splashing muddy water on them.
• “I find it strange. How does water stagnate on the highway less than a km off the coast? There is no stormwater network. Neither highway nor corporation authorities care to address the perennial problem,” said marketing executive Prabhu, a regular commuter.The ongoing monsoon pounding has compounded the woes of commuters between Palavakkam and Thiruvanmiyur. Countless potholes have reduced the highway into a single lane, causing huge hardship to people.“There has been no attempt to pump the water out to help pedestrians,” said Ramanathan, an auto driver. Even in the relatively new IT corridor, people face the problem of water stagnation.The interior roads laid by the corporation in Thiruvalluvar Nagar and Kottivakkam have no provision for rain drainage.With the authorities laying edge-to-edge roads right up to footpaths, water can only stagnate.

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