Shutting Down CMBT Is Cruel, It Needs To Continue As Chennai’s Primary Transit Hub

With the impending opening up of the Vandalur Kilambakkam Bus Terminus in southern Chennai, one fear among many of the city’s residents is not going away. The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has proposed to shut down the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) (also known as Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MGR Bus Terminus or MGR Koyambedu) permanently.

A little background

Broadway Bus Terminus. Photo Credit: Commercial Vehicles Magazine
Broadway Bus Terminus. Photo Credit: Commercial Vehicles Magazine

Opened in 2002, CMBT is a 37-acre bus station that serves as Chennai’s primary terminus for mofussil and long distance buses operated by various government agencies. It is owned by the CMDA and operated jointly by the six divisions of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC), namely TNSTC Villupuram, TNSTC Coimbatore, TNSTC Salem, TNSTC Kumbakonam, TNSTC Tirunelveli and TNSTC Madurai. The remaining two arms of the TNSTC, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) also play a role in the daily operations.

Prior to 2002, Chennai had no dedicated bus station for long-distance buses. Few SETC buses usually operated out of one half of the Broadway bus terminus. Other SETC and nearby states’ buses would operate out of a vacant plot of land opposite Chennai Fort railway station, which today houses the Government Dental College and Hospital while private buses would operate from the Gandhi-Irvin Bridge Road near Chennai Egmore railway station on the banks of the Cooum river.

In the late 1990s, the wholesale market located at Kothawal Chavadi was moved to a 295 acre plot in Koyambedu. After this, the entire operations of all government buses was shifted to the new bus terminus at CMBT. A separate 6.7 acre bus station was built across the road, adjacent to the whole market. Named the Chennai Contract Carriage Bus Terminus (CCCBT), it handles between 350 to 450 private buses and 5,000 passengers a day.

Till 2018, CMBT was the hub for all TNSTC and SETC buses, as well as buses operated by the RTCs of Puducherry (PRTC), Karnataka (KSRTC), Kerala (also KSRTC), Andhra Pradesh (APSRTC), and Telangana (TSRTC). In 2018, TNSTC buses bound for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, as well as APSRTC and TSRTC buses were shifted out to Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT).

Madhavaram has its problems

Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT). Photo Credits: BNR Infrastructure
Madhavaram Mofussil Bus Terminus (MMBT). Photo Credits: BNR Infrastructure

MMBT is an 8 acre, two-level bus terminus located at Madhavaram, adjacent to CMDA’s truck terminal, at the intersection of Grand Northern Trunk Road (GNT Road) that forms National Highway 16 (formerly NH5) and Inner Ring Road (IRR/State Highway 2). While it does feature two platforms for MTC buses, it otherwise lacks good connectivity. There are a few buses that connect it to CMBT and a lot of buses that connect it to Broadway or Vallalar Nagar (V Nagar/Mint Street). Passengers arriving from CMBT have to cross the road at the roundabout which witnesses heavy truck traffic. While MMBT and CMBT are located barely 10km apart, it can take up to 30-40 minutes to reach there.

Around 315 buses use the terminus daily, catering to an average of 12,000 passengers, with a higher number over the weekends. While TNSTC and APSRTC operate numerous services to Andhra Pradesh, TSRTC operates one Volvo service to Hyderabad. APSRTC operates several buses to Vijayawada. There are no buses to Visakhapatnam or Yanam and SETC doesn’t operate a single bus into either Telugu-speaking state. In fact the destination with the highest number of SETC routes apart from Chennai is Bangalore.

MMBT can handle 42 buses on the ground level and another 50 from the upper level. However, only government buses currently operate from MMBT while private buses continue to operate from CCCBT. This puts the former, especially APSRTC buses at a major disadvantage. Interestingly, some of TNSTC’s buses bound to Tirupati start from CMBT, which also gives it an unfair advantage over its Andhra Pradesh counterpart.

Connectivity to Madhavaram will eventually improve drastically. The under-construction lines 3 and 5 of the Chennai Metro both start at Madhavaram Milk Colony, located to the northeast of MMBT with Line 5 have a station outside MMBT. It will further continue on IRR and meet the Green Line at Koyambedu (not CMBT) and then at Alandur before meeting the MRTS at St Thomas Mount/Parangimalai. While the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) expects all three lines of Phase 2 to be completed by 2025, our friend TheMetroRailGuy estimates it to be completed no sooner than 2028.

Now coming to Vandalur Kilambakkam

While CMBT is currently Asia’s largest bus terminus at 37 acres, it will be soon dwarfed by the Vandalur Kilambakkam bus terminus that is spread across a whopping 88.5 acres. A timely reminder here that Delhi’s Millenium Park is not a bus station but a depot and therefore not Asia’s largest bus station.

With a total built-up area of 6.4 lakh square feet, it will feature 215 bus bays of which 130 will be for government buses and 85 will serve private buses. It will also have parking space for 300 buses, 275 cars and over 3,500 two-wheelers. An MTC terminal is being built adjacent to it, spread over 7.4 acres, nearly the area of MMBT. Interestingly the entire bus terminus lies within a protected and prohibited zone of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) as it contains Megalith Burial Sites. The National Monument Authority (NMA) gave a green signal so long as no commercial development took place for 100m in the region except for greenery and the CMDA installed the required signage.

By road, the distance between CMBT and Kilambakkam is exactly 30km if one were to take IRR till Kathipara and then continue onto Grand Southern Trunk Road (GST Road). The distance is the same if one were to go to Maduravoyal and take the Chennai Bypass till Irumbuliyur and then proceed along GST Road. Outer Ring Road (ORR) terminates on GST Road just north of the bus station. The nearest railway stations are Vandalur and Urapakkam on the Southern Line of the suburban railway, both of which are at least 10 minutes away. As for Metro, the nearest station is Chennai International Airport, located 16km away. After a long tussle between the Highways Department and CMRL, an extension of the Blue Line from Airport to Kilambakkam is on the map. The former wanted to build an elevated corridor on the route and the metro’s height will be decided accordingly. However, this will take several years to reach fruition and till then there will be heavy traffic. CMRL has also initiated feasibility studies to extend Line 3 (Madhavaram Milk Colony to Siruseri) to Kilambakkam via Kelambakkam (Get ready for more confusion). However this is light years away since the depot is at Madhavaram and most of the line runs underground and without a depot connection, nothing can happen.

One theory that I have heard is that private players would lobby the government to let them continue operating at CCCBT. This would put all TNSTC services at an unfair disadvantage and would hurt the poorer sections of society the most. Further, GST Road is the most congested highway in Chennai since it acts as a gateway to the entire south from Coimbatore to Madurai to Trichy to Tirunelveli and Nagarcoil. The time saved by buses in exiting the city will be lost in reaching the terminus. Auto and cab fares will end up costing the same as an intercity luxury bus ticket while bus journeys with luggage in MTC buses would be unbearable.

The worst hit would be commuters towards the West: Those heading to Vellore, Bangalore, Hosur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and even Salem, Erode and Coimbatore. Passengers living in North Chennai will also be affected badly. The bus journey from Bangalore which takes approximately six hours from Shantinagar to CMBT will go up by at least an hour and then there is the extra hour lost in getting to Chennai city itself.

Note: Bangalore-bound passengers won’t have to travel to Kilambakam at all. But it’s worse. Read the update section at the bottom of the post please.

The way ahead

The way ahead for CMBT isn’t all that difficult. It currently has connectivity to most parts of Chennai thru MTC buses, has a metro connection to both the major railheads (MGR Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore) and the airport.

Among the various proposals for the land, the most ridiculous one is to build a park. While I won’t deny that parks are important, the city is home to 632 parks as of 2019. The city’s per capita green cover stands at 8.5 square metres, just short of WHO recommendation of 9 square metres. In 2019, the began an ambitious plan to set up 67 new parks, mainly due to the destruction of close to one lakh trees in 2016 due to Cyclone Vardah.

CMBT can remain a bus terminus, albeit with some redevelopment. CMRL is in the process of redeveloping Broadway as a multi-storey bus terminal. MTC has been toying with this idea for the Thyagaraya Nagar (T Nagar) bus terminus for years now. CMBT could easily be redeveloped with a bus station at the ground level, parking and commercial operations above that. Bangalore has successfully done this. The Shantinagar bus depot was converted into a bus terminus with a Big Bazar and a parking lot atop the bus station back in the early 2000s. In fact, even the Kalasipalayam bus terminus, used mostly by private buses has been redeveloped in such a fashion. With bus and metro connectivity, the land will be premium, and give the CMDA a significant return on investment that can be used elsewhere.

There is no requirement for CMBT to shut down. Broadway didn’t shut down when CMBT opened up and in fact some SETC buses for Madurai still depart from Broadway. Many cities operate with multiple bus terminals. Mumbai has five outstation bus terminals while Pune has three. Bangalore has three and its central bus station, the Kempegowda Bus Station at Majestic was briefly downsized for metro construction. In the interim, certain buses were moved to Shantinagar and Mysore Road Satellite Bus Station at Bapujinagar. Today all three operate successfully.

But perhaps the most radical of all ideas came from a friend on Twitter, Krishnan. He tweeted that the site could be used for a future High Speed Rail terminal, and I could not agree any more. Given that the first HSR line to Chennai will connect it to Bangalore, it makes sense to keep the terminal somewhere near Poonamalle High Road/Grand Western Trunk Road (GWT Road). Given CMBT’s nature as the city’s pre-eminent transport hub, it makes perfect sense to make CMBT the HSR terminal as well. It will aid in quick commutes, fast transfers between different modes of transport, and will not hurt passengers’ wallets or watches.

Update

It’s 2024 and Kilambakkam (now nammed Kalaignar Centenary Bus Terminal or KCBT) is operational. While I haven’t been there, things aren’t smooth. MTC buses bound for KCBT are taking a minimum of an hour to reach there from Velachery. One good thing is 21G (Broadway to Vandalur Zoo) has been extended to KCBT, especially the AC bus but there are no AC buses from CMBT.

Private buses have refused to ply from KCBT and CMDA and the transport department has threatened to file criminal cases against them. Some buses were even forced to run empty from CMBT to KCBT. You can read more here. Southern Railways meanwhile has begun work on a new station which will take time to complete. On this note, do read: Urban Connectivity Chaos: People Managing Metro, Railway, Bus Stations Are Working In Silos by Srikanth Ramakrishnan on Swarajya.

For Bangalore and other West-bound passengers. It seems the powers that are have decided to make things worse for us. We will have to depart from another bus terminus, this time at Kuthambakkam near Thirumazhisai. This 25-acre bus terminus is touted to be completely air-conditioned and will feature a food court. The downside? It’s worse located than KCBT. It is approximately 9km from the Poonamalle junction and 2.5km from the highway. Getting there will obviously be a mess. It will feature 136 bus bays and CMDA is in the process of identifying access roads to be built. The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) has asked for an extension of the metro to start work. This line, connecting Poonamalle too Light House is under construction and connects with the existing network at Vadapalani.

Let us pray that the administration does not miss this opportunity.

Featured Image: Chennai Mofussil Bus Station (Seshadri Sukumar/PIB Chennai)

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SETC AC Buses Get Germ Filters For A Safe Ride

Your next ride in a long distance AC bus in Tamil Nadu might just be different. In a bid to boost ridership and safety of passengers during the ongoing Wuhan Virus pandemic, the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) of Tamil Nadu has upgraded 20 of its 340 AC buses. According to a report in the Times of India, these 20 buses have been upgraded with air-conditioning units that have multistage air filters, ultraviolet (UV) disinfection systems to prevent viruses and bacteria from entering the bus.

According to the corporation, 200 of its 340 buses were operational during the lockdown with an average occupancy of 65 per cent. Officials at SETC said that they anticipated additional demand for AC buses during the summer and that many passengers were still skeptical about traveling in AC buses due to the spread of the Wuhan Virus. A private partner was approached for a pilot project in 20 buses. The air filters, each costing ₹40,000 have been installed atop the existing air-conditioning units of the bus.

Officials added that the UV sterlisation destroys micro-organisms that enter, while a filter mesh and photocatalyst absorb larger micro-organisms. The fresh air mechanism ensures that stale air within the bus is not circulated, thus also reducing travel fatigue. An air quality index (AQI) monitor is installed near the driver cabin to measure the AQI in the bus. Results from the trial runs showed that after 25 minutes of operation, AQI went down from 759 micro-organisms per cubic metre to 33.

With the ongoing pandemic, this looks like a fantastic method to reduce transmission of the virus in public transport while also ensuring a smooth and comfortable drive. Tamil Nadu’s chief minister Edappadidi K Palaniswami has so far done a splendid job of handling the pandemic and not allowing India’s most urbanised state to become like Uddhav Thackeray-ruled Maharashtra. EPS has also done a lot for public transport and infrastructure for the state over the last four years. Do keep this in mind when Tamil Nadu goes to polls on 6 April.

It seems the days of TNSTC and SETC being the best transcos in India are back.

Featured image: New SETC AC buses by Vinoth Thambidurai (VOMMspotter).

When you head out to vote for the AIADMK-PMK-BJP alliance on 6th, please remember to wear a mask, carry hand sanitizer and maintain social distancing.

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Did You Know Chennai’s MTC Had Hand Sanitizers Dispensers Installed On All Buses?

Thanks to the Wuhan Virus pandemic, the last one year has been bad for public transport. This has been problematic especially in larger cities such as Mumbai and Chennai. However, Chennai went a step ahead of other cities by installing something as elementary as hand sanitizer dispensers on all buses operated by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC).

Below is a picture that I clicked in January this year. At many places, conductors were insistent that people enter only thru the read door and sanitize their hands before purchasing a ticket. At Vadapalani bus station, several conductors even refused to let passengers board if they weren’t wearing masks or didn’t sanitize their hands.

Hand Sanitizer dispenser inside an MTC bus (Srikanth Ramakrishnan/BESTpedia)

While Tamil Nadu ranks second among deaths and fifth among total cases, one must remember that it is the most urbanised among India’s states (not counting Goa or Sikkim) with 48.15% of its population living in urban clusters. Kerala comes in second with Maharashtra with 47.7% and 45.2% respectively. These two states have meanwhile seen 1.14 million and 3.01 million total cases and nearly 5,000 and 56,000 deaths respectively as opposed to Tamil Nadu with 9 lakh total cases and 12,700 deaths. A special round of applause for Dr Beela Rajesh who served as the state’s health secretary from February 2019 to June 2020.

Tamil Nadu has done really well in its fight against the Wuhan Virus and one has to thank chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami for that. The state goes to polls on 6 April and I hope people remember EPS’ role in tackling the virus when they cast their votes.

Hand sanitizers in buses. Now why didn’t anyone else think of that?

Featured Image: MTC Tata Bharat Stage IV buses. Image Credits: Vinoth Thambidurai (VOMMspotter)

When you head out to vote for the AIADMK-PMK-BJP alliance on 6th, please remember to wear a mask, carry hand sanitizer and maintain social distancing.

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The Propaganda of Transport

Propaganda is a very misused, overused and abused word today. Politicians use it all the time to attack each other. In such cases, we should take a closer look at the word Propaganda itself.

Merriam-Webster defines Propaganda as ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.

Of course, we can take the liberty of interpreting Propaganda as a more open nature of promoting oneself or ones interests to an audience.

The most well known example of Propaganda is the 1940 film The Eternal Jew, directed by Fritz Hippler and produced by the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels under the Deutsche Film Gesellschaft banner. The film was nowhere near subtle, and portrayed Jews as Uncivilised, Parasitic and worse. However, times have changed and propaganda in its current form is very subtle, often using bias to have its way.

In the recent times, propaganda has managed to make its way into the Transport sector too. When we say Propaganda in the Transport sector, we do not refer to naming stations, airports, roads and bridges after people. Mumbai has one major railway station and its airport named after Chhatrapati Shivaji. Bangalore has its central bus station and airport named after Kempegowda. This is a global phenomenon. New York’s major airport is named after former President John F Kennedy while it’s secondary airport is named after the 99th Mayor Fiorello La Gaurdia.

The propaganda we look at is subtle, and in some cases, not so subtle.

A Nationalistic Bus?

A BMTC Atal Sarige on route AS-6.
A BMTC Atal Sarige on route AS-6. Image copyright Binai K Sankar.

At first glance, the Atal Sarige operated by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation [BMTC] looks like its livery is is draping the bus with the National Flag. But. It’s wrong. If you take a second look, you’d notice that the colour scheme is White, Green and Saffron/Orange. The party colours of the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. Further, the name itself is a giveaway. Named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the BJP, the bus was meant to serve the poorest of the poor.

Note: If you’re Mumbai, the highest fare is on a bus with its route number starting with AS, and if you’re in Bangalore, it’d be the opposite.

And now, for a little Aesthetics.

A TSRTC Metro Luxury Volvo at Lingampally.
A TSRTC Metro Luxury Volvo at Lingampally. Image copyright LoveOfZ, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons.

Pink is known to be a very soothing colour. It is often used to calm inmates in prison.

However, the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation [TSRTC] bus above did not turn pink to soothe its commuters. Telangana State was formed in 2014, and the party that won a majority in its Assembly Elections was the Telangana Rashtra Samithi [TRS], whose party colour is Pink. Thus, everyone who sees the bus will remember the colour pink and every time there is a campaign by the TRS, people will be calm, because, Hey, Pink is a soothing colour.

Switching Colours

And now, for the most interesting, and perhaps most noteworthy form of Bus-based propaganda.

Welcome to Tamil Nadu, where all the various divisions of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation [TNSTC], the Metropolitan Transport Corporation [MTC] of Chennai and the State Express Transport Corporation [SETC] are like Chamelons. Remember the phrase “गिरगिट की तरह रंग बदलना” (Girgit Ke Tarah Rang Badalna)? That’s what TNSTC/SETC/MTC buses do. Change colours; Every time the government changes. It’s like an unwritten part of the party manifesto.

Here’s a picture of an MTC bus taken in April 2011 below. It’s blue in colour. Blue is also a soothing colour, although I fail to understand why anyone would want to say ‘Feeling Blue’ to refer to Sadness.

A blue coloured MTC Semi Low Floor bus on route number 21G.
A blue coloured MTC Semi Low Floor bus on route number 21G. Image copyright Vinoth Thambidurai/CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported/Wikimedia Commons.

This picture was taken in April 2011, a month before the All India Anna Dravida Munnethra Kazhagam [AIADMK] government won the elections. Colour combinations were aplenty across Tamil Nadu. Some buses bore different shades of blue and yellow, some were white with Red, Yellow and Orange stripes across them, there were many.

Now, they are all uniform. While, I did mention Fragmentation in an earlier post, it would be great if each city had its own identity in terms of colours. Here, Tamil Nadu is one single entity in terms of coloured buses.

All long distance buses, including all SETC buses are now Green in Colour. They’re light green in colour with dark green stripes, or dark green in colour with light green stripes, depending on how you may want to look at them. Local buses, including all MTC buses all sport the same Brown-Beige combination which makes it look like the bus wasn’t washed at all. Perhaps a plan to not wash the buses regularly.

Below, is one such repainted bus, taken in 2013, belonging to TNSTC Coimbatore.

A TNSTC CBE bus at Vadavalli in Coimbatore.
A TNSTC CBE bus at Vadavalli in Coimbatore. Image copyright Faheem9333/CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported/Wikimedia Commons.

See, what did I tell you? Where did this come from? Some people tell me that the colour has to do with what happened before this repainting. Barely three-four months before the buses got this brown colour, they had a different colour.

An MTC bus in the intermediate colour scheme.
An MTC bus in the intermediate colour scheme. Image: The Hindu

Notice the colours? Notice the photo of Jayalalithaa on the windscreen? I know it’s a bit difficult to see it, but can you see it. In the picture, Jaya is seen wearing a saree that is the same colour as the Maroon on the bus. Her complexion matches the beige on the bus. Tada! When the paint jobs were done, all buses sported a huge photo of the Chief Minister on the front windshield on the left hand side.

And now, finally …

Green Leafy Vegetables Buses

They say, greens are good for health. They say Green is a sign of Eco-Friendliness. But, the leaves here don’t exactly say that do they?

An MTC Small Bus [Mini Bus].
An MTC Small Bus [Mini Bus]. Image: The Hindu
 While MTC curiously chose to name these buses as ‘Small Bus’, not ‘Mini Bus’, they also decided to put a few leaves on it. No points for guessing why. The AIADMK’s Party symbol is: Yes, that’s right, Two Leaves! But, wait! You can see four leaves on that bus! Simple: 2+2=4. The more the merrier. Two more leaves is just going to reinforce things into the commuters head.

Now, notice something common among all these Transcos mentioned? They’re all State-level bodies, not Municipal ones. You’ll never see BEST, AMTS, or PMPML like this. Why? Decentralisation of transport management ensures that while Municipal Bodies have the wherewithal to run the Transco, they won’t have the time or resources to go behind such trivial stuff. They’ll have more important stuff such as banners, roads, naming of Chowks to work in their favour.

On an unrelated note: Searching for Purple Faeries on Google leads you to the Tag Purple Faeries. I call this, Purple Propaganda..

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