Chennai's T Nagar to face one more year of traffic disruptions, more metro tunnelling on

CHENNAI: Many roads in T Nagar shopping hub have been barricaded and traffic has been diverted but it may take one more year for tunnelling to start from Panagal Park to Boat Club via Nandanam covering nearly two kilometres. At present, two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) are building one-kilometre-long twin tunnels between Panagal Park and Kodambakkam.The areas will be linked in the 45.4km corridor-3 of phase-2 from Madhavaram Milk Colony to Siruseri Sipcot.
A Metrorail official said after the two TBMs complete tunnelling between Panagal Park and Kodambakkam, they will be deployed again for tunnelling between Panagal Park and Boat Club.
“One TBM has completed 120m of tunnel and another around 30m between Panagal Park and Kodambakkam. Both the machines may complete tunnelling by February 2025. The machines will then be retrieved, refurbished and deployed in Panagal Park again. Tunnelling between Panagal Park and Boat Club may start in May or June 2025,” the official said.
At Panagal Park, the tunnel will be around eight metres in depth. It may gradually go deeper at 24m at Nandanam junction where tunnels will be built below the existing phase-1 tunnels.
A major portion of roads around Panagal Park including Venkatanarayana Road has already been barricaded and traffic diversion was made earlier this year. Metrorail officials said further traffic diversions may be made as workers will begin excavating soil within the outer walls of the Panagal Park underground station.
“It is a struggle to cross T Nagar during peak hours as roads are very narrow. If I go via T Nagar, I reach my destination in less than 30minutes. If I take a roundabout route to avoid T Nagar, I spend nearly 90 minutes on the road during peak hours because there is traffic diversion in the surrounding areas such as Valluvar Kottam and Nungambakkam as well. I hope CMRL completes work on time,” said S Sundar, a resident of Choolaimedu.