CHENNAI: Travelling to work at an IT Park on OMR involves strategic planning for A Nived. The Iyyappanthangal resident has to factor in the Thoraipakkam-Pallavaram Radial Road toll plaza or the 4km detour he can take to avoid it. If he takes the plaza, he pays Rs 50 and waits more than 10 minutes.
Instead of being gateways to better maintained roads, the booths take a toll on road users.
A 2015 study in the International Journal for Scientific Research and Development says vehicle flow at Kelambakkam, where there are no toll gates, is more than at Sholinganallur and Thiruvanmiyur which have them. Passing a toll takes 2 or more minutes, delaying the overall journey by 10 minutes or more.
Several subsequent studies concluded that toll plazas definitely worsened traffic delays.
What starts as a knot at Perungudi and Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Link Road spirals into bottlenecks at SRP Tools and Tidel Park, especially on weekdays. Poor traffic management compounds the woes. “What can be covered in 5 minutes takes 15 or longer due to partial one-way traffic at Sholinganallur signal,” says R Ramaswamy, a retired banker.
Traffic hassles and poor management by the Tamil Nadu Road Development Corporation Limited (TNRDC) have meant that the toll plazas — the contract signed nearly 13 years ago lasts till 2037 — have been largely ineffective.
The IT corridor project was initiated to improve the sparsely populated stretch and to establish TN’s industry-friendly image. But the expanded city now includes Siruseri and having a toll within a city is unfair, feel many, saying tolls act as virtual borders.
National Highways Fee (Determination of Fee Rates & Collection) Rules, 2008 don’t allow toll gates within 10km of a municipality or town, but there is no clarity on whether they apply to OMR, built and maintained by a state agency.
The TNRDC has adopted some of the NHAI's rules pertaining to Fastags, and road safety, but has its own rules to fix toll fees and issue free passes for local residents.
Highways secretary A Karthick refused to comment, but S Narasimha Rao, an independent TNRDC director, said that while the agency was ready to discuss the issue the final call was the government’s.
A TNRDC official said the toll collected was put to effective use in terms of relaying roads regularly, constructing bridges to avoid accidents and reduce traffic, upgrading facilities at toll plazas and beautifying roads, particularly medians.
Almost half of the Rs 55 crore annual toll collected goes for maintenance and the rest spent on infra development, salaries and interest on loans. Nearly one-third of more than Rs 100 crore borrowed for the Rs 380 crore project (the rest is government funding) has been repaid, according to official data.
“If we stop collecting tolls, how can we repay loans and what happens to the company’s future,” the TNRDC official asked.
Under the IT Expressway Toll Road concessionaire, the project involved building a three-lane carriageway, service roads, foot over-bridges (FoBs) and pedestrian paths, but OMR residents say most of the promised amenities including dormitories, wide bus bays and emergency helplines are hardly in place.
Except for the foot over-bridge in front of TIDEL park, steps in other FoBs are steep, forcing pedestrians to jump across road medians, they say. OMR has the highest number of pedestrian deaths in the city (22 killed in 122 accidents last year).
TNRDC officials blame police for lack of coordination and increase in private vehicle use on the stretch.
After IT Expressway Limited, a TNRDC subsidiary developing the IT corridor, proposed five flyovers at key junctions including at Perungudi and Sholinganallur, hoping to reduce traffic congestion by at least 10%, Rs 500 crore was sanctioned.