Rangarajapuram flyover by July

CHENNAI: : The Chennai Corporation is rallying its troops to step up work and complete the Rangarajapuram flyover by July, now that the Railways has completed its portion of the work and handed over to the civic body. The bridge over the rail tracks was conceived as a Y-shaped flyover, and the first arm landing close to the Kodambakkam railway station was inaugurated in September 2011 by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. The Corporation has since then been waiting for the Railways to complete the portion of the project on their land. In the meantime the Corporation completed the work of laying the ramp and slabs on the West Mambalam end.Corporation officials say the only thing left to do is connect the West Mambalam arm to the main bridge. “The West Mambalam end is complete. The rest of the flyover is already functional. All we have to do is lay slabs over the railway tracks and complete the work,” said an official.The Rangarajapuram flyover project faced delays before its first arm was inaugurated. It was commissioned with the aim of reducing congestion on the Duraisamy underpass and the Kodambakkam bridge on either side, apart from diluting the heavy concentration of traffic at these bottlenecks.It is customary in underpass and flyover projects that the Railways carries out work on its own where its land is concerned. It was for the Railways to finish this tranche of work that Corporation officials were waiting. Once completed, the Rangarajapuram flyover is expected to carry one-way traffic on its two arms, with climbing traffic entering from Rangarajapuram and traffic descending into West Mambalam.  The third end of the flyover, linking to North Usman Road, is expected to support two-way traffic.