Needed: Wider bridges to give rail users right of way

As the Chennai Beach-bound EMU enters the Guindy railway station, G Nandini readies to break free. For the past five years, this Chromepet resident has alighted at Guindy and sprinted past fellow commuters to climb the narrow foot overbridge which takes rail commuters to either the GST Road or Race Course Road.
“If I miss a step, I could get caught in the crowd. It would take at least 10 minutes to navigate the bridge and get out during the peak hours,” she said.

With a daily footfall exceeding 30,000, Guindy, alongside Mambalam Railway Station, is one of the busiest transit points in the Chennai Beach-Tambaram suburban railway corridor. Yet, for years, rail commuters have had to make do with limited infrastructure at these stations. Commuter safety is also risked when these narrow bridges continue to handle large volume of commuters on a daily basis.

Efforts from passenger associations to push the Southern Railway board into action have so far failed to bear fruit. “We had written to the railway board multiple times asking them to widen the Guindy foot overbridge. Nothing happened,” said V Rama Rao, social activist and director of the residents’ collective Traffic and Transportation Forum.

On February 1, during his budget speech, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley announced a ‘safety first’ policy where railway stations with over 25,000 footfalls will be fitted with escalators. “I would like to think that the railway board includes Mambalam and Guindy stations in this redevelopment proposal. It is strange to think that Mambalam still does not have an escalator after all these years,” Rao added.

According to senior railway officials, there is currently no proposal to widen the Guindy foot over-bridge. But metro rail has proposed to connect the suburban station with Guindy metro which might help in handling the peak hour rush better.

In the case of Mambalam, railway has plans to widen the present bridge. “We will construct a five-metre wide foot over-bridge in addition to the existing structure. The foundation for the structure has been laid on one side. We need help from the city corporation to remove encroachments on Ranganathan Street side before proceeding,” a railway official said.

Greater Chennai Corporation officials told TOI that a skywalk to link the railway station with the T Nagar bus terminus would help address the congestion problem at Mambalam. However, the proposal is currently in the consultancy stage.