Yearender 2013: Smooth ride

Chennai: The transport scene in the city for 2013, despite formidable odds,  made a decent performance. Regularisation of auto meters was a major highlight in the year followed by introduction of small buses. DC takes you through the scene.

Autos

Autos — the name itself terrorized locals and visitors alike. The interiors of Chennai are yet to be explored by MTC and thus autos thrived. "The splendid bhajis at Marina or the ethereal moments at Mahabs Chennai makes for wonderful memories but one encounter with an auto driver brings the scene crashing down to ground zero," says a Delhiite Kanchan Monga, after a nine-month stay in the city.

After several years of apathy, the official machinery sprang into action. Barricades were placed, vehicles were impounded and permits cancelled. Though deadlines were followed and meters calibrated, auto drivers continue to be recalcitrant.

You may bring in meters in autos, but why will we use them is their answer. Today, in several areas in the city, commuters are refused transport when they ask for a running meter. The standard reply is, "Short distance does not fetch us profits."

Officially, 58,645 autos have received calibrated meters with 23,355 remaining, and 67,005 have received fare cards which are to be prominently displayed in the vehicle in case the meter is not calibrated.

SETC

The scene at the CMBT bus terminus was well managed with extra buses being added and special counters being opened in peak times of the year. There were well displayed banners with bus routes and platforms displayed outside.

The mass movement of the home-going crowd for Deepavali was catered to with additional service of nearly 8000 buses being added and 25 extra counters added for booking. Pon Muthu says, "Last year I struggled to get a ticket for my sister, but this time it was easy."

Traffic movement outside the stand was also managed efficiently when compared to last year.

Small buses

A major step by the transport department in catering to a new audience is in plying smaller buses in interior areas. The step was welcomed by commuters. MTC buses do not run in interior roads, be it Villivakkam or Vadapalani forcing people to depend on autos or walk the same stretch. Introducing fifty mini buses in October this year addressed the situation though many areas remain to be touched.

Bus crew say, "Patronage is on the rise. There is a need of bus stops on these roads as presently we depend on hand signals to stop and this makes us slow." There are now plans to introduce another fifty small buses. MTC officials say that the service will be extended to other routes.

Bad roads

With no separate lanes for buses and narrow routes along many corridors, MTC drivers not only have to negotiate unruly motorists but also the poor state of roads in the city.
Last month culminated with three separate accidents involving MTC buses.

Chennai added 8,061 private vehicles between April 2012 and 2013. A total of 480 accidents involving government buses have occurred in the city in 2012 alone. Unconfirmed reports place the death toll involving the MTC at 97 this year.

The stress on MTC drivers continues unmitigated with heavy traffic and long hours of duty.  Yoga classes which were touted as a remedy are not even close to giving relief. According to an official, one driver gets two classes in six months.

Next: New metro boss to speed up work

New metro boss to speed up work

K. Karthikeyan |?DC

Chennai: From reaching office late to boarding train or airplane at the nick of time, Chennaiites would have ‘cursed’ strangers seated in Conron Smith Road building by mumbling four letters at least once in the year that went by. The four letters are CMRL, which stands for Chennai Metro Rail Limited, which changed the skyline of the  city and its mobility, functioning from the building.

In barely a few months in the New Year, you would admire the same people in the building.  Senior IAS officer Pankaj Kumar Bansal took over as managing director of CMRL on Thursday. He has a big shoe to fill. For, his predecessor K. Rajaram IAS created history on eventful year by putting the city’s first metro rail on test run (flagged of chief minister J. Jayalalithaa) on November 6, a few hiccups like delayed execution of work notwithstanding.

Bansal would have the daunting task of overseeing the trial run of the metro rail on the elevated corridor from Koyambedu to St Thomas Mount. If CMRL officer’s words were something to go by, the metro rail would surely find a mention in the poll campaigns as senior CMRL sources told DC that the trial run would commence by late March or early April, when the heat of the Lok Sabha polls would be best felt.

If that were not enough, even the suspended Mount-airport corridor, which was stalled after CMRL terminated the contract for missing the deadline, is back on track ahead of a new year. Work orders for the three of the two contracts that would put the Mount-airport corridor on steam will be awarded before the weekend, CMRL officials confirmed.

Hamstrung by economic downturn that hit infra majors executing the metro work, CMRL is confident of gifting a metro service of international-standard to the city sometime after July 2014.

However, CMRL had its quota of blemish as well in the year last. The cracks on a couple of heritage structures, CSI-Wesley Church, Arcot Lutheran Church and landmark LIC, which alone was proved not to be true after scientific study, and residences in Broadway are a few worth mentioning. Not to mention a couple of accidents at metro work site that claimed a construction worker’s life.