http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/article2781492.ece

View a slideshow on The Hindu’s website showing the accident spot and the dangerous conditions of neglect of suburban railway infrastructure, lack of modernisation on Beach – Tambaram section.

Click on this picture to view a slideshow on The Hindu's website

The footpath on Station View Road, Kodambakkam, serves the shops on the margins exclusively. Ones square foot here is about Rs 10,000 so even a few square feet is a bounty. As the picture shows, the issue here is not livelihood.

The Hindu : NATIONAL / KARNATAKA : It’s not an easy walk to the metro station.

This facility used to be active during 2010 and even last year. Picture taken with Samsung GT I9003 and edited with Image ShrinkLite for Android

What crosses one’s mind immediately is the fate of pedestrians in Chennai, who have some of the most difficult walking paths anywhere. Regular commuter on the city’s suburban rail system and the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) find the going even tougher. To switch from the Tambaram-Beach suburban line to the Beach – Velachery MRTS, the available transit stations are Fort, and Beach. You must use a staircase of the kind seen in the picture below.

But at both places, passengers must climb steep staircases. Passengers who are 40-plus find it particularly difficult, especially women who have begun to develop osteoarthritis symptoms. Although Tamil Nadu has been represented on the Union Cabinet by several Ministers of State for Railways, they have done nothing. Our much-travelled Home Minister  P.Chidambaram, who must have seen the Washington DC Metro many times during his visits obviously finds these issues uninteresting.

An old woman makes her way slowly up the transit staircase at Fort Station in Chennai, India

See the video below to understand what a climb involves, even for a person with not-so-severe disability.

The pantheon of Dravidian political parties considers walking on the road a clear sign of personal failure – they insist on riding in nothing less than an SUV, and will walk only in their own large houses or party headquarters. Their disinterest in pedestrian facilities is therefore notorious. Thus, they put up steep staircases in Murasoli Maran’s time on Haddows Road and Nungambakkam High Road, which nobody used. A lift was then installed at the latter location, working only part of the day.

Will the example of Medellin make them feel a little bit inferior, and do something for Chennai?

(Incidentally, his speech on the mathematician is here and an interview with his biographer Robert Kanigel in The Hindu is here.)

Back to the commuting issues, here are the learnings: Lots and lots of people have shifted from the bus to the suburban train, even though it has a limited catchment in terms of areas served. Jayalalithaa’s government has delivered a body blow to the commuting public with its usurious fares, and will inevitably be awarded suitable pain by the angry voter. People are also not going to pardon the MTC for failing to provide at least more and better service.

What makes the shift to the train even more painful, however, is the lack of suitable ticketing infrastructure on the suburban and MRTS railway system of the Southern Railway. At Park, for instance, there was a crowd of a couple of hundred people waiting to buy a ticket at 11 this morning. This is simply unacceptable for an urban train system, or any system for that matter.

To escape this long queue, what the Chennai resident should ideally do is to take out a monthly ticket, which costs roughly the equivalent of two or three autorickshaw rides. For those who drive personal vehicles, the pass costs the equivalent of about two litres of petrol. No one will find that a problem. Which means, if you ditch your car and do a train commute just once, you have saved enough for half a month, and if you have done it on two days, you have a full month’s pass in savings. The rest is naturally a bonus.

In my experience, if you decide to go car-free two days a week, it works nicely in terms of the economics. It also provides a health bonus in the form of a nice walk.

Evidently, the newspapers are unable to communicate strongly, the resentment of the thousands of people who have been thrown to the wolves by the DMK Government earlier (by failing to expand the bus system and instead allowing unregulated feeder taxis to take the place of new buses), and the Jayalalithaa government, which has put even basic mobility out of reach for the bottom rungs of the Chennai population. Both governments dangled the prospects of mini-bus services to meet demand, even produced a self-serving report through Anna University, only to put the issue in cold storage (pressure from the autorickshaw lobby?)

The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority, the regulator (on paper) of transport remains simply invisible through all this.

The Habitat Forum Berlin, School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University and City Connect, an NGO in Chennai have jointly announced a contest for architecture students to submit ideas for the Light House Station on the MRTS.

This neglected station suffers from poor maintenance, although it is close to several educational instutions, the Marina Beach, and shopping malls such as Chennai City Centre. What is more, it is ideal transit point as it is cheek-by-jowl with Dr. RK Salai. MTC in fact operated some services via this station to achieve inter-modal connectivity when the system was extended to Velachery, but quickly discontinued them.

It would be interesting to see how architects view the problem, and what their ideas are.

The AIADMK government has indulged in tokenism and blamed the Centre, but failed to live up to its responsibility of ensuring affordable, comfortable travel for the 7 million population in Chennai, as also for residents of other cities and towns in India’s most urbanised State. If the blow of higher travel costs due to fuel was bad enough, the Jayalalithaa government delivered another crippling hit to the commuter in the form of a usurious increase in bus fare.

In this situation, the trains have stood out as a viable option. Yet, there are too few services, especially in the Beach – Velachery MRTS system. During several hours of the day, the frequency drops to one in 30 minutes or one in 20 minutes. The wooden attitude of the Railway towards needs of the MRTS should also be highlighted by the political parties, including the DMK.

At the moment, we can expect little from the Jayalalithaa government in this regard. It has also remained moribund on the question of introducing mini-buses, despite the availability of a report from Anna University. This is without doubt, a non-performing government.