CHENNAI: The ordeal for commuters at Velachery Vijaya Nagar bus terminus has been continuing for years. With the terminus lacking basic amenities such as chairs, public toilets and shelters, and with buses halting on the carriageway of the road, passengers have to wait in the scorching heat to board buses.
Although the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) had proposed to shift the bus terminus to a spot near the Velachery MRTS station, the proposal has remained a non-starter for the past 10 years. “A portion of the bus shelter was demolished in January 2018 to make way for one arm of the flyover from Taramani Link Road to Velachery Bypass at Vijaya Nagar junction.
Since then, the bus terminus has become cramped, due to which commuters have been standing on the roadside to board buses,” said S Jaganathan, a resident of Velachery, TNHB Colony. The bus terminus also has no proper name and sign boards, added Jaganathan.
The junction witnesses traffic contestion during peak hours as buses from Velachery Bypass Road, Taramani Link Road and Tambaram-Velachery Road have to negotiate a narrow space to halt at the terminus. The congestion is expected to reduce once the second arm of the flyover from Velachery Bypass towards Tambaram is ready.
The bus terminus caters to commuters bound for Southern suburbs including Tambaram, Madipakkam, Medavakkam, Kelambakkam, Chromepet, Sholinganallur and Perungudi. Direct buses to Central, Broadway, Ambattur and Avadi also originate here. As of March 2019, the bus terminus handled more than 60,000 commuters a day.
In 2018, MTC attempted to acquire six acres near the Velachery MRTS railway station for the terminus. But due to differences between government departments in fixing land cost, the plan went into cold storage. A Revenue Department source said forest department land was identified adjacent to the land identified for the bus terminus. “As of now, the proposal exists only on paper,” the source said. MTC officials refused to comment.