Coordinated effort launched to streamline traffic, parking near Egmore Railway Station

Efforts underway to reduce traffic congestion outside Egmore Railway Station with coordinated measures by various stakeholders.

A coordinated effort involving various stakeholders is being taken to reduce the traffic congestion outside Egmore Railway Station.

A meeting was held earlier this week in which officials of the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP), Railway Protection Force (RPF), and Southern Railway, worked out measures to ease the congestion. The new measures are expected to be implemented in 10 days, they said.

The meeting followed the publication of a news report titled “Road near Egmore Railway Station chock-a-block with traffic, haphazard parking” under the ‘Stories from the Road’ column in The Hindu on May 25, Sunday. Following the article, Deputy Commissioner of Police Traffic S. Megalina Iden held a meeting with the officers of Railway Police Force, Southern Railway and licensed auto drivers’ association at the Egmore railway station on Tuesday.

During the meeting, the officers discussed various factors that led to traffic chaos on the premises and outside the station and instructions were issued to regulate auto parking and streamline the traffic.

Ms. Iden said, “Earlier, there were four gates to the station and three of them are closed now due to development works. There is only one gate now for entry and exit. The passengers who come by personal vehicles enter inside through one gate. Place for pick up and drop is also not adequate. So, we have requested Railway authorities to allot more space so that we can make available three lanes inside the premises, and move ahead the space for unloading and loading by pick-up vehicles.”

Further, the traffic police and RPF have decided to deploy additional personnel during peak hours to regulate the traffic here.

Egmore Railway Station Director S. Ramesh said, “We are going to open two more exit points and deploy RPF personnel. The GCTP also has agreed to deploy traffic personnel and patrol vehicles. We are exploring the option of giving one more entry point by pushing the space for parcel vehicles a little bit inside the construction site in the west.”