CHENNAI: Angry pedestrians staged a flash road roko on Monday morning, after a small child met with a minor accident on the busy Taluk Office Road in Little Mount. The road roko resulted in traffic coming to a grinding halt in not only the Saidapet area, but also in several other arterial roads for a period of over an hour and a half. The pedestrians blamed the police for not providing a pedestrian-crossing with a traffic cop on duty.However, while the traffic situation on the road gave the police a few worries, the Internet traffic to their Facebook page gave them something to smile about. Once the CCTP (Chennai City Traffic Police) posted on their Facebook page that pedestrians were demanding a road-crossing despite an overbridge being provided, messages of support poured in for the cops from various netizens.Flaying the protestors for jay walking and even urging the cops to impose fines and jail them, the city's online community expressed their support for the traffic cops.Giridharan Kesavan, a netizen, posted on the page, "It is ridiculous! That junction is such a mess because of the one-way regulation. It is also the only place in the world where apart from a foot overbridge, there is also a stop light so that pedestrians can cross. Just arrest those who don't want to use the bridge, and keep them in jail for one day. Everything will be OK."Additional Traffic Commissioner of Police Sanjay Arora said, "Being one of the arterial regions in the city, once the block was removed, it took another hour to tackle the congestion in surrounding areas such as the Gemini Flyover, Nandanam, Kotturpuram, Raj Bhavan and Adyar — where traffic had been diverted on account of the block." Commuters must take into account the fact that the Taluk Office Road is the main corridor to Adyar from South Chennai, and has an unyielding steady flow of traffic, as it is a one way.Sridhar M, a witness to the incident, said, "The police officers were very kind and trying to resolve the situation by trying to reason with the protestors. There would have been no blockage of traffic and so many delays caused to commuters if the police had simply lathi-charged those who were creating the problems."However, despite being late to work, several residents expressed support to the protest. Sridhar added, "For long, there has been discontentment over the fact that a foot overbridge had been provided instead of the subway we had repeatedly requested.""I cross this overbridge everyday on my way to work," said Ganesh S and added, "There are barely one or two people I have seen using it, because it is almost two floors high. I myself would never consider climbing those stairs." There is also the case of the foot overbridge being an inconvenience to the elderly and many a youngster riding a cycle. Radio host Sanobar Sultana, who informed listeners of the traffic jam stated, "I got close to 30 calls from commuters in a span of 20 minutes and although a majority were in support of the protest, most said it would have made more sense had it been staged on a day when it was unlikely for problematic traffic repercussions, like a Sunday."One commuter who heard about the traffic jam on his way to work responded, "There are foot over bridges in Kandenchavadi and in Perungudi as well and the case is the same — no one uses them because they are so high and there is no elevator or escalator."
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