Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXXIII No. 6, July 1-15, 2023
July 1 will mark the completion of fifty years of the iconic Anna (Gemini) Flyover. Built at a time when the number of vehicles crossing that junction was around 9,000 during peak hours, it continues to cater to a load far higher than that. And yet it keeps working, with minimum maintenance. It certainly deserves to be commemorated and celebrated.
True, there are today much larger flyovers and grade separators across the country and technology has advanced to an extent when this structure may seem a minor piece of work but in its time it was pathbreaking. And our city planners, in anticipating traffic loads showed remarkable foresight, something that seems lacking today. Certainly, life without the flyover on Anna Salai would be very difficult – the mind boggles at the traffic lock jams that could happen.
Our OLD shows the plan of the flyover, courtesy The Hindu. Our NEW is of a part of the structure as it stands at present. Long may it tower over us. For further details on this icon of the city, please see A Flyover Turns Fifty.