Metro Rail gulps Chennai Central parking space

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Rajesh was in a hurry to help his wife and two children catch the train at the Chennai Central before rushing back to his office.

But despite his best effort he could not secure a place to park at the railway station. “It is a small parking space and is full of call taxis and tourist operators. In the end I just dropped them in front of the station and waved them goodbye rather than helping them with the luggage to board the train,” he says.

“Parking has been a nightmare in Chennai Central,” a north Indian commuter says.

With the premium parking space being shut down for metro rail work, commuters find it difficult to hire call taxis. “I have to agree to pay double the parking charges to the taxi driver so that once I arrive at the station, I can commute to my place in Ambattur easily,” says  Sanjay.

But all are not lucky. Many of the commuters are dependent on auto-rickshaws who do have a meter installed but they are back to the old ways of charging their own fare.

It is surprising that Chennai Central Railway station which caters to about 2.2 lakh people each day does not have adequate provisions for car parking. “I have to walk all the way to the other end of the road to get a taxi along with the baggage, my wife and two children. The railways should understand our plight,” said Saravanan, who had returned from Coimbatore.

“We understand the problem of parking for four-wheelers but then we can’t help it till the metro rail work is on,” says a railway official.

Interestingly, the railways have allocated a parking space for four-wheelers near the Railway Protection Force (RPF) police station. But this is a small parking space and is occupied by call taxis and tourist vehicles. A RPF personnel who was monitoring the traffic at the railway station says 70 per cent of the parking space is taken over by call taxis while the private cars have access to 30 per cent of parking space only.

“We are taking action against those who park their vehicle for long hours creating traffic chaos,” he says.

But with the metro rail work likely to be completed by around 2016 end, there is no respite for Chennai Central commuters who rely on taxis or the luxury of driving their own car to the station.