Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

is home to the second largest vehicular population in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, behind

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

. The total road network in the city's metropolitan area is 2,780 km. With Chennai's vehicular population having experienced a surge in the late 1990s, several flyovers were built to reduce the traffic congestion in the city. Of about 15,600 million invested by the state government between 2005 and 2016, Chennai cornered a major chunk of the investment. As of 2016, there were 42 functional flyovers in the city and about 30 bridges, catering to the city's vehicular population of about 12 million, including about 600,000 cars. In addition, more than 36 flyovers are in the pipeline.

Beginnings

The city's first flyover is the

Anna Flyover Anna Flyover, also known as Gemini Flyover, is a dual-armed grade separator in the central business district of Chennai, India. Built in 1973 and dubbed one of the top-rated flyovers in the country, it is Asia's First Grade Separator, the firs ...

at the Gemini Circle built in 1973, which was the third in India, after the ones at

Kemps Corner Kemps Corner is an upmarket neighbourhood in South Mumbai. It is flanked by Altamount Road on one side and Malabar Hill on the other. It lies at the intersection of Breach Candy, Warden Road, Pedder Road and Nepean Sea Road Nepean Sea Ro ...

and

Marine Drive Marine Drive may refer to: Roads Bangladesh * Cox Bazar-Tekhnaf Marine Drive, world's longest marine drive road. Canada *Marine Drive (Nova Scotia), a scenic route in Nova Scotia *Marine Drive (Greater Vancouver), a number of roadways in Metropo ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. It was also the longest flyover in the country when it was built. No major flyovers were built in the following 20 years or so. The number of flyovers in the city began to rise in the late 1990s when a string of nine flyovers were built across the city during the tenure of the then Mayor of the city,

M. K. Stalin Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin ( , born 1 March 1953), often referred to by his initials MKS, is an Indian Tamil politician serving as the 8th and current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The son of the former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, Stalin ...

Road space

As of 1 April 2013, the total vehicle population of Chennai is 3,881,850, including 3,053,233 two wheelers. The flyover construction in the city has resulted in the addition of a mere 12.4 km of extra road capacity between 2005 and 2014. As of 2014, the total length of operational flyovers in the city was 13.5 km.

List of flyovers

Criticism

Between 2005 and 2014, the state government has spent over 15,590 million erecting flyovers and grade separators, of which 11,440 million (88%) was invested in Chennai. The city hosts all 21 elevated urban corridors open to traffic in the state in 2014. In the late 1990s, a Traffic Action Plan was prepared for the city. It is said the brain behind the traffic action plan was the

Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers The automotive industry in India is the fourth-largest in the world as per 2021 statistics. In 2022, India became fourth largest country in the world by valuation of automotive industry. As of 2020, India is the 5th largest automobile market in ...

(SIAM), which organised seminars in hotels and conducted traffic studies and public opinion surveys. The investments made by the automobile industry resulted in an increase in the city's per capita ownership of cars, which by 2012 was second in the country, behind New Delhi. Various global studies indicate that flyovers and elevated roads tend to "induce" new traffic because of the apparent extra road space, and this held true in the case of Chennai, according to experts. The number of vehicles on Chennai's roads had increased dramatically since the late 1990s, resulting in regular traffic snarls. Critics also say that, despite costing 4 to 5 times a normal road, flyovers do not resolve the problem of traffic congestion. For the 15,500 million spent between 2005 and 2014 by the state government, critics opine that the government could instead have invested in buying about 7,000 public transport buses or laid more than 2,000 km of dedicated cycle lanes or built an extensive bus rapid transit system covering about 150 km.

New projects

Thirteen more flyover projects have been announced by the state government: Kattupakkam, Akkarai, Ambattur, Avadi, Madhavaram, Ramapuram, Kundrathur, Kaiveli, Selaiyur, Korattur, Vadapalani-P.T. Rajan Salai junction, Madhya Kailash and Madipakkam.

References