Metro Rail work: The best thing to have happened to OMR’s footbridges 

On this IT Corridor stretch of Chennai where footover bridge usages was poor among commuters, the on-going Chennai Metro Rail work has brought a difference.

The foot overbridges on Rajiv Gandhi Salai (also known as Old Mahabalipuram Road) used to be as populated as the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.

Currently, a small group of them — being specific, the ones at Sevaram, Mettukuppam, the PTC quarters section of the road and Karapakkam — is as scuffed with shoes as the antechamber of a party-throwing socialite’s home. It entertains a steady stream of pedestrians.

Anyone who takes in the prevailing scene would straighaway attribute the sudden, skyrocketing popularity of the foot overbridges to the Metro Rail work on this section.

The tall metal arricades raised along the median as part of the work leaves pedestrians with little choice but to take the FOBs to cross the road.

The median on this section, as in almost all other sections of the road, is only a little over two feet high, something even arthritis-ridden legs can scale.

From Thiruvanmiyur onwards and towards Siruseri, the Metro line would take an elevated route. The FOBs will be retained as the elevated line sails comfortably over it.

The takeaway from this situation is that after the Metro Rail work is done and dusted, each FOB should be flanked by median that is at least up to 100 metres on both sides. The median should be high enough to deter the sprightliest of youth from trying to scale it. Authoried at-level crossings through planned median gaps should be outside of the zone. That and that alone will ensure these FOBs do not gather dust (once again), but people.