Commute

Tambaram’s transformation into a bustling suburb in the past few decades has been nothing short of remarkable. The creation of Tambaram Municipal Corporation has been a recent development that signals the growth of the area.  With the increase in population comes the need for better infrastructure, services and connectivity. Connectivity has been a hurdle that the suburb has yet to solve, with residents’ demands for more trains and buses a constant.  Recently, the residents saw success with Tambaram station becoming one of the stops for the Tejas Express, the semi-high-speed train running between Chennai and Madurai. This achievement was the…

"How can I be encouraged to walk in Chennai if the roads do not have space for pedestrians?" 23-year-old Varsha Ganesh, a resident of KK Nagar asks. "I take share autos or my two-wheeler these days, even if I have to cover a short distance."  Varsha is not the only person to feel that way. "The situation is no different anywhere else in the city. Pedestrian safety has always been the last priority for the government," says Raghukumar Choodamani, a civic activist from Perambur. Last year, pedestrians suffered 35% of the total road fatalities in Chennai. A study identified Koyambedu,…

"Do you have your eyes on the road or not? Can't you see there are vehicles coming?", yelled a motorcycle rider at a few pedestrians waiting to cross the Rajiv Gandhi IT Expressway on foot. He did so as he sped past the Tidel Park signal, swerving left, on his way to East Coast Road. He missed colliding with the pedestrians by some inches. A recent study on accidents involving pedestrians in Chennai raised some alarming facts about exactly how unsafe the city is for those who navigate it on foot. The study was conducted by Karthikeyan Baskar, a Chennai-based…

After much fanfare Bengaluru's new Whitefield (Kadugodi) and Krishnarajapura (KR Puram) metro line, which finally put Whitefield on the Namma Metro grid, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 25th, and opened to the public on March 26th. Despite being made fun of by netizens for the line missing between Baiyappanahalli and Krishnarajapuram, which is currently bridged by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation's (BMTC) feeder buses, the Whitefield metro line logged a ridership of 16,319 on the first day of operations. The line, which is proposed to connect Baiyappanahalli and Whitefield through Krishnarajapuram (KR Puram), is essentially an…

The Karnataka and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Budgets, 2023-24, recently announced that 75 junctions of Bengaluru would be improved, at a cost of Rs 150 crore. In keeping with this vision, the BBMP and Bengaluru Traffic Police, in collaboration with World Resources Institute India (WRI India), under the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), launched the Suraksha 75 Mission 2023 initiative on March 25th. The Suraksha 75 Mission aims to create people-centric and holistic intersection designs to make them safe, efficient, inclusive, and universally accessible. This initiative aims to make Bengaluru's busy intersections safer for pedestrians, along…

“Trams still run on 40 routes in Melbourne with millions of users,” says former tram conductor Roberto D'Andrea, who along with his fellow conductor Tony Graham travelled from Melbourne to Calcutta in February to promote the five-day Tramjatra festival. “It is not merely a heritage ride but used daily by commuters as part of the public transit system”. Calcutta is no Melbourne. But it can boast of two firsts: The first Indian city to build a metro line. And the only city to still have functional tram lines. The Calcutta metro of course gets all the attention and money. The…

“I board a share auto near my house in Virugambakkam to the metro station in Ashok Nagar to get to work every day. I use a share auto on my return as well,” says G Balakumar, a frequent share auto-user in Chennai. Over the years, share autos have become an integral means of first and last-mile connectivity for many in the city. They fill a necessary gap and bolster the use of public transport in the city by providing a reliable and cheap mode of transport. With a growing user base, it becomes necessary to bring in some form of…

It is 10 am on a Tuesday morning on Bazaar Street in Austin Town, Bengaluru. Traffic is moving smoothly, people are walking on the footpaths without hindrance. It is hard to believe that this was once a chaotic and dangerous street to use. About four months back, the footpath was virtually unusable. Shopkeepers had set up canopies and put up advertising boards that blocked the footpath. Some had piled their wares in front of their shops. The street itself was no better. Both sides were lined with street vendors, reducing the road width available for vehicles. Auto rickshaws used to…

Namma Metro (BMRCL), after a long delay, extended the Green Line services beyond Yelachenahalli station to Silk Institute station, with additional five stops inaugurated on January 14 2021. But the new stations are not friendly to senior citizens and persons with disabilities. The metro stations have entry/exit gates on the east and west sides. For commuters on the west side, there is only one upward escalator to reach the concourse (ticketing area). However, after alighting from the concourse they have to walk down the steps (numbering about 35) to reach ground level. Recently, I watched two senior citizens struggling to…

Arun Kumar’s daily commute from Ashok Pillar to Thiruvanmaiyur is fraught with danger. “I am at the risk of being hit by one or the other vehicle while walking on the road,” he says. "With the stormwater drain work, many footpaths that existed earlier have vanished. Now that we are forced to share road space with vehicles," he says. Vulnerable groups such as pedestrians, cyclists and persons with disabilities share these harrowing experiences navigating the city. Data released by the Greater Chennai Traffic Police in February shows that 35% (179 of the 508 people) of casualties caused by road accidents…