Commuters rue absence of parking space on east side of Guindy railway station

Redevelopment work at Guindy railway station on Thursday.
| Photo Credit: B. VELANKANNI RAJ

The modernisation work at Guindy railway station, which is being executed under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme (ABSS), is progressing well. However, commuters are disappointed because of the absence of a parking space on the east side of the railway station. 

As Guindy railway station has become one of the few multi-modal hubs that links buses and metro on the Beach-Tambaram section, Southern Railway has decided to renovate the railway station, where multi-level parking space along with lifts for seamless access to the railway station is being worked out. The ABSS work is planned to be completed by the end of this year with all civic works set to be completed in a few months. However, a large section of commuters are complaining about the absence of a two-wheeler parking space on the east side of the railway station where the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses are routed through. 

A senior official of the Chennai division of Southern Railway said a new parking area, under the ABSS project at the railway station, has been completed on the west side with two-wheeler parking functioning now. Also, the contract for multi-level parking for cars has been awarded and works will be commencing shortly.

M. Sai Prasanth, a regular commuter from Maduvankarai, said the railway station has become a transport hub as people could change their mode of transportation easily. While the Southern Railway operates a parking space on the west side along the GST Road, hundreds of commuters coming through the east side have no parking facility and are forced to park in the road margins of the Race Course Road near the Guindy bus stop, apprehensive that their vehicles will be stolen or towed by the traffic police. 

Previously, the MTC buses were operated through GST  Road but since the metro station was developed on the west side of the Guindy railway station to decongest GST Road, the traffic police has diverted all MTC buses through the Race Course Road. 

Commuters using two-wheelers on the Race Course side said that all parking facilities, including metro, are available on the west side, with no parking facility on the east side. They point out that till a few years ago parking space was available on the east side but it has been closed. Also, the commuters highlight heavy encroachments by vendors, shops and houses, taking over a huge portion of the railway property, which if removed, could be turned into parking lot.