Chennai, Mar 2: The Broken Bridge at Besant Nagar is popular for a lot of reasons. The facility which once connected Besant Nagar beach with the Foreshore Estate beach, and helped fishermen commute, collapsed in 1977 during a flood.
Today, the bridge that is popular as a shooting location and for its spooky stories, might finally be revived, with the Madras High Court recently asking the Chennai Corporation to explore options to restore the structure.
According to sources, the civic body will soon get working and come up with a feasibility report to reconstruct a wider bridge connecting Besant Nagar to the Marina Loop Road via the Broken Bridge, to ease traffic.
It may be noted that Justices Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar made the observation upon perusing reports filed by Corporation Commissioner and the Joint Director of Fisheries on the regulation of fish sellers and stalls on Marina beach and the Loop Road, an exercise that was carried out in response to a public interest litigation filed by Fishermen Care, a non-governmental organisation working for the rights of the fishing community, reports said.
If the bridge comes up, the congestion on DGS Dhinakaran Road and Greenways Road, can be eased, it is expected.
A 2019 traffic police survey done on DGS Dhinakaran Road and Durgabai Deshmukh Road, found that there were 26,120 vehicles during peak morning hours and 32,353 vehicles plying between 5 and 8 pm daily, reports said.
However, few environmental activists pointed out that the construction of a bridge here would flout the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification and endanger the lives of marine organisms as well as the livelihood of fisherfolk.