Deeper and smarter metro stations in Chennai in the future
Posted on: 11/Nov/2019 9:22:02 AM
Walking as many as 3 floors below the street level to board a metro train in Chennai!! Yes. Its true
The news that has come out now is passengers might have to walk 3 floors below the street level to catch their metro train in Chennai as CMRL would be constructing deeper and smarter stations.
Information is the concourse level and the 2 tunnels for 2 lines would be stacked one above the other. It is worthy to mention that the facility would be as deep as Central metro at 28 m to 30 m but less than half its length at 157 m and one-fourth of its width at 9 m.
To save the cost of land acquisition at locations where the width of the roads is as narrow as 10 m, CMRL had decided to go with the underground stations. It is revealed that such stations could be constructed faster and might cause less inconvenience to the public.
The locations such as Pattalam, Perambur, Doveton and Thirumayilai are identified as the 4 places by the CMRL for the above mentioned facilities. In addition to this, another 4 stations were also planned by CMRL on corridor 4 from Light House to Poonamallee through Mylapore, T. Nagar, Nandanam and Vadapalani.
An official belonging to CMRL spoke about huge amount of money that has to be spent to get lands and how it could create problems to the people. The CMRL had taken the decision to optimize the space or available and go deeper. It must be taken into account that all the 128 metro stations in the 118.9 km phase-2 planned might look and feel different from one other. It is brought out that CMRL is now simulating site conditions and projected ridership to generate unique design for every station.
By the month of June in 2020, construction for the phase would start and 52 km would be taken up first. By the year 2024-25, it would be ready to be used. Point to be noted is currently soil tests are being done and detailed design for the metro stations is under way. Detailed design consultants are now using computer simulation software to produce unique design for each station based on the site condition and projected ridership. It is known that in the 45 km phase-1 CMRL followed a standard station design.
It was pointed out by an official of CMRL that in places like Pattalam and Perambur having road width of 10 m to 11 m properties might have to be acquired on either side of the road to construct metro stations like those in phase-1. He added that the daily footfall might be less than others at some locations. He concluded that instead of cut and paste design, metro stations would be constructed as per the requirements.
