Ray of hope for commuters, metro phase-2, new buses and bike taxis etc superb in Chennai
Posted on: 27/Dec/2019 10:09:05 AM
Slow moving traffic on the arterial roads has been creating many issues for the people in Chennai. The residents also face issues regarding autos having incorrect metres and huge amount demanded by the auto drivers. The metro rail has given the residents a ray of hope now.
It is amazing to mention that metro rail’s 45km line phase-1 became operational in 2019. It is now said that this might be the beginning of a new era in public commute. For many decades, Chennai residents did not have quicker and cleaner alternative of travel and the metro rail’s 45 km phase-1 line has changed this totally.
Connecting the northern as well as southern suburbs, metro rail is scheduled to extend its network to 118.9km. The superb point is commuters have now got many choices such as metro rail, app based cab, bike taxis, new MTC buses, MRTS and suburban trains. Commuting in Chennai city has become inexpensive and faster now with the availability of metro trains and bike taxis etc.
According to Mr. R. Ramanathan, former Chennai metro rail director, when phase-2 comes up and more neighbouring districts such as Chengalpet, Kancheepuram, Arakkonam etc get linked with a double suburban line in the next 10 years, it would create employment opportunity and efficient public transport system. He hinted that the metro train patronage would increase in the future from the present one lakh above commuters per day.
It is worthy to mention that for seamless commuting of the people the government has to provide multimodal mobility cards plus manage demand and supply of app based cabs, regulate auto fares etc. The bike taxis that are new entrants add new dimensions to the Chennai city commute now. It must be noted that Chennai residents have started travelling at just Rs 3/km in 2019 due to bike taxis.
Superb point is a short ride in bike taxis would cost just Rs 30 and this was unimaginable till 3 months ago when bike taxis came into existence in Chennai. Another important piece of information is Rapido, app based aggregators that were present in cities like Bengaluru and Vizag was launched in Chennai. Inspite of the hesitancy on the part of the state government regarding bike taxis, Madras HC allowed bike taxis for providng last mile connectivity.
An official belonging to the transport department highlighted that bike taxis were unsafe as the divers might drive the bike taxis fast to cover more trips.
