Chennaites look forward to travel by Chennai Metro rail

Chennaites are able to see its ubiquitous presence……….. you see lot of work happening ~ every arterial road that you take a turn, you are greeted with a board saying that ‘particular stretch’ is one way and that one has to detour long to reach one’s destination………… somehow, traffic has survived – it is up and running despite having the major Mount Road turning one way for quite sometime now and the bends changing in month’s time to pave way for the work that is going on.

Chennai is looking forward to a great solution ~ ‘The Chennai Metro Rail’.  Those who have travelled it in Kolkatta and Delhi are having huge expectations ~ to some the reality that one could travel underground when normal traffic flows unabated on the road is yet to sink in.. yes, it for sure is going to be a marvel. 

The Chennai Metro Rail is a rapid transit system in Chennai which is underway. The Phase I of the project consisting of two corridors covering a length of 45.1 km is under construction. The elevated section of the project is scheduled to be operational by 2013 and the entire project is scheduled to be completed by the financial year 2014-2015. About 55% of the corridors in Phase I is underground and the remaining is elevated.

There are reports that with  roughly a year left for the first signs of Chennai’s metro rail, the countdown has officially begun. The focus now, for Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), is the stretch between Koyambedu and St. Thomas Mount that is part of corridor II of the Rs. 14,600-crore project. The Hindu reports that about 50 per cent of track laying has been completed on the stretch. The elevated stretch has eight stations, including Koyambedu and St. Thomas Mount. According to CMRL, the deadline for the elevated stretch is the first quarter of 2014. Engineers at different Metro sites said a three- to five-month delay could be expected in the project. A massive project such as this, an engineer said, had to overcome different hurdles at various points. “Right from land acquisition to shortage of river sand for construction, there are a host of issues,” said an engineer working at one of the underground stations along Anna Salai.

The elevated stretch between Koyambedu and St. Thomas Mount has to accommodate a complex structure over Kathipara junction. Known as the balanced cantilever, this bridge-like structure will come up at a height of about 25 metres above the road, and connect with the Metro corridor on two sides of the clover leaf-shaped flyover.

When major works takes place, there are bound to be smaller troubles.  IENS reports that hundreds of residents in Gopalapuram, Besant Nagar, Adyar and Royapettah were forced to travel long distance for cash transactions after ATMs in the region malfunctioned when a Bharat Sanchal Nigam Limited cable snapped due to ongoing Chennai Metro Rail works.  It states that residents said that ATMs in several places malfunctioned from Friday evening.  A BSNL spokeswoman  is quoted as stating that the cable snapped due to ongoing Metro Rail work in Whites Road Junction.  In an unrelated incident at Arakkonam, services were hit at an SBI branch due to internet connectivity issues, following which enraged customers held a strike.

Dear Chennai, wait ~  your traffic problems are going to be over with the magical solution of Chennai Metro

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

4^th Feb 2013.