Commuters complain of bumpy rides on roads leading to ‘beautified’ water bodies

Coimbatore: The Coimbatore Corporation has been focusing on beautifying many tanks and lakes in the city but the roads that lead to these water bodies have been ignored by the state highways department.
Sundapalayam Road, which is the access road to Kumaraswamy, Selvampathy and Krishnampathi “beautified” tanks, has become bumpier for the past three months.
Commuters say it is not the only main road that is in bad shape — Race Course and Kavundampalayam-Edayarpalayam roads are even worse.
Under the Smart City project, the Coimbatore Corporation constructed small parks, walkways and jogging tracks around the three above-mentioned tanks. However, commuters who now cycle or drive over to the tanks to enjoy a pleasant walk or ride, find themselves complaining about the road.
“The road was in a good shape two years ago. Now, it has a plethora of potholes. When we cycle, it often becomes too bumpy forcing us to slow down or focus on avoiding them,” C Ganesh, a resident of the road, said. “The corporation or highways department could have re-laid the road in May during the complete lockdown.”
“The drive gets jumpy and we even start hearing noises even when we drive at a normal speed of 40 kmph on the road. It is impossible to even raise the speed on the road,” a daily commuter, V Venkatesh, said.
Race Course Road, which also saw “rejuvenation” of its walking track, parks and facilities, is in a worse state, residents say.
“While they are working on rebuilding the walking and jogging tracks, the road has become worse. One of our main requests was to first remove all old layers of the road and relay it properly,” Anshul V, a resident of the area, said.
The 3km-long Kavundampalayam-Edayarpalayam Road, which is now being used by thousands of commuters as a diversion due to the Mettupalayam Road being blocked, is also filled with potholes and badly laid speed breakers, say residents.
“The district administration and corporation should have re-laid or at least done a patchwork on the roads marked for diversion,” a resident said.
The Coimbatore Corporation says plans are on to relay a 3-km stretch of the circle with bitumen. They say the water supply and UGD works are over, but gas pipeline work is still on. “We will coordinate with gas pipeline and complete the work within three months,” corporation commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara said.