Upgrade for Race Course road

Chennai: A 900m stretch along Guindy Race Course road, from Chakrapani Street to Guindy Bridge junction, will see infrastructure upgrades including widening of a 220m stretch, a new skywalk, and a ‘transit' pedestrian plaza at the busy multimodal hub.At the heart of the 900m stretch is a busy multimodal junction integrating three modes of transport: bus, suburban rail, and metro rail. "This junction sees an average footfall of 4,000 an hour, with the bus stop on one side and metro and suburban rail on the other," said urban designer M Charu Shila from Arcadis, working with Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) on the project. "Upgrades are aimed at easing and streamlining pedestrian and vehicular traffic," she said.To decongest the area, a 220m-long stretch from the Madras Race Club (MRC) gate near the race course bus stop to the Maruti ABT Centre will be widened by GCC at a cost of 4.9 crore. "MRC has agreed to give us land for widening the road. We will demolish the compound wall along the race club and build a new one. A transformer in the middle of the stretch will be removed and reinstalled beyond it," said GCC zonal chairperson (Adyar) K Durairajan, adding that the widening work will be completed by May.GCC also plans to build a pedestrian plaza along the transit areas, referred to as a ‘transit' plaza, at a cost of around 20 crore by the year end. "We are looking at a 100m stretch each—on the left side near the bus stop and on right near the suburban and metro rail stations—for the transit plaza. Facilities will include 2m-wide footpaths on both sides, ornamental lighting, streetlights, CCTV cameras, drinking water facilities, seating areas and bollards to prevent vehicle parking. The central area of the transit hub will have cab and delivery pick-up and drop-off points to ensure complete multimodality," said GCC executive engineer R Purushothaman.Work on the plaza is expected to begin soon after underground work for stormwater drains, sewers and Metrowater are completed, said GCC assistant executive engineer S Karthikeyan. "The final leg of the upgrade is a skywalk worth around 9 crore, which will connect bus commuters to the railway," he added.Pedestrians have called for the project to be expedited.