Chennai IT expressway should be "extended till Cuddalore"

Homes near offices will help cut congestion on IT Corridor
TNN, Apr 13, 2010, 11.05pm IST

It’s a long road to workplaces. To lessen the strain of employees who currently travel 40 km to and from work, the IT expressway should have adequate housing, schools, hospitals and other social infrastructure, say experts.

“Employees usually stick with a company for a fairly long period of time. So most of them stay in Chennai and commute to their offices on OMR because there are more facilities for their families in Chennai,” says AN Sachithanandan, ex-president, Institute of Town Planners of India.

One sure way of addressing commuter woes is to expand the expressway and build facilities around it, say experts. “The expressway starts abruptly at Madhya Kailash and ends at Siruseri. Ideally it should extend till Puducherry or Cuddalore like the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which runs for nearly 100 km,” says urban engineering expert KP Subramanian.

Company transportation is a temporary option, says Subramanian. “Company vehicles add to the traffic and sap the city’s resources, including roadspace. Also, commuting is not a desirable concept when you take into account the amount of fuel and time spent,” he says.

With optimal utilisation of land resources, authorities can also consider a dedicated bus corridor for the six-lane expressway. “Buses will move without any hindrance or cross-traffic,” says MG Devasahayam, former administrator of Chandigarh Capital Project.

For now, independent agencies are coming up with their own solutions. The Metropolitan Transport Corporation, which runs nearly 400 trips on this stretch daily, plans to augment the service by introducing more air-conditioned buses. Southern Railway is planning to lay a new line to connect Chennai with Puducherry and Cuddalore. The proposed line will connect Sholinganallur, Kovalam, Tiruporur and Mamallapuram till Cuddalore Fort.

Authorities should come up with some short-term solutions as well to ease the traffic flow, say commuters. “Many approach roads aren’t equipped to handle the same amount of traffic as the expressway,” says former IT professional V Ranganathan. The government should increase the green signal time at junctions at Vijayanagar in Velachery and Sholinganallur checkpost to avoid huge pile-up of vehicles, he says.

(with inputs from Jeeva, V Ayyappan & T K Rohit)

Chennai-Cuddalore east coast railway line updates

The alignment survey results for the proposed Chennai-Cuddalore east coast railway line is out. Perungudi will be the starting point. Guess trains will stop both at Tirupadiripuliyur [thiruppaathirippuliyoor] and Cuddalore [kadaloor] OT junction. A new junction is proposed at Puducherry [puthuchcheari].

Below is the proposed alignment. This can be changed.

01. Perungudi (0 Km)
02. Solinganallur(9.6 Km - Crossing)
03. Kovalam (23.6 Km - Crossing)
04. Tirupporur (30.1 Km - Crossing)
05. Mahabalipuram (43.7 Km - Crossing)
06. Kalpakkam (49.3 Km - Halt)
07. Sadurangappattinam(52.7 Km - Crossing)
08. Kuvattur (64.5 Km - Crossing)
09. Cheyyur (80.2 Km - Crossing)
10. Chunampet (92.8 Km - Halt)
11. Marakkanam (96.6 Km - Crossing)
12. Kunimedu (112 Km - Crossing)
13. Kuilappalayam (125.6 Km - Crossing)
14. Jipmer (131.1 Km - Halt)
15. Pondichery (139.1 Km - Terminal)
16. New Pondichery (147.4 Km - Junction)
17. Bahoor (161.9 Km - Crossing)
18. Varakalpattu (170.2 Km - Existing Station in VM - CUPJ Line - Proposed Junction)
19. Tiruppadirippuliyur (175.3 Km - Existing Crossing Station)
20. Cuddalore Port (179.2 Km - Existing junction)

General expectation of people from Cuddalore and Puducherry will be to start the project from the Cuddalore end, as this will ease the travel between these towns even before the actual project is complete.

As of now it is unclear whether train services between Cuddalore and Puducherry will be introduced. If introduced the travel time could be reduced to 15 minutes.

Source: Indian Railways Southern Zone discussion forum

Related stories:

Indian Railways Southern Zone's discussion forum - Cuddalore Online March 14, 2009

Blueprint for E Coast rail link to Cuddalore ready - The Times of India June 08, 2008

Developements in the proposed Cuddalore - Chennai rail project - Cuddalore Online June 04, 2006

More details on Cuddalore - Chennai rail project - Cuddalore Online October 06, 2005

Cuddalore - Pondicherry connection - Cuddalore Online October 05, 2005

Chennai-Pondicherry rail ? NO it must be Chennai-Cuddalore - Cuddalore Online June 01, 2005

Blueprint for E Coast rail link to Cuddalore ready - The Times of India

Blueprint for E Coast rail link to Cuddalore ready
21 Jun 2008, 0346 hrs IST, V Ayyappan,TNN

CHENNAI: Gazing at the shimmering waters of the Bay of Bengal while traveling down the east coast on a train to Puducherry — the possibility is not so distant as Southern Railway is all set to lay a new line from Chennai to Cuddalore via Mamallapuram and Puducherry.

The project is part of an ambitious plan chalked out by the railways to connect Chennai to towns along the East Coast all the way up to Kanyakumari. Though the entire line will be executed later on, the railway board has given the go ahead to build the line from Chennai to Cuddalore at a cost of Rs 523 crore.

According to the approved alignment, the 179-km line will take off from Perungudi station on the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) and traverse between Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) and East Coast Road (ECR) before reaching Jipmer at Puducherry and Cuddalore. No timeframe has been fixed for completion of the line.

After Perungudi, the line will pass through Sholinganallur, Kovalam, Tiruporur, Mamallapuram, Kalpakkam, Kuvathur, Cheyyur, Marakanam, Kunimedu, Kuiyilappalayam, Jipmer in Puducherry, Bahour, Varakalpattu, Tirupadipuliyur and Cuddalore Fort. The line will run close to the sea at Mamallapuram.

The railway line will run on an embankment, and as most of the ECR does not have buildings on either side, travellers will be able to have a view of the sea.

Surveys to identify passenger feasibility on the route have revealed that the line will be viable as more people are travelling from Chennai to Puducherry and Cuddalore because of the recent developments along the OMR and ECR.

A Perungudi-Cuddalore line will enable passengers to board an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) to Mamallapuram and then switch to conventional trains to Puducherry or Cuddalore. Travellers will be able to reach Puducherry in two hours, as against the five hours via the current line through Chennai Egmore-Villupuram-Puducherry.

A senior official of Southern Railway said, “A final survey is being done by the engineering division to update the cost before starting work. But, there will not be any change in the alignment.”

Though Perungudi has been fixed as a take off point, railways is also considering other options “because they want to link the line to the main network. We are considering whether the new line can be connected to some point on the Beach-Tambaram line. This will enable it to handle long distance and freight trains,” said Southern Railway Chief Public Relations Officer Neenu Ittyerah.

If the line starts from Perungudi, the operations wing has decided to operate EMUs from Chennai Beach via MRTS to Mamallapuram and conventional trains between Cuddalore and Mamallapuram via Puducherry. The board has approved the new line by including it in the supplementary budget of September 2007.

Thanks BK for sharing it in the group.