Chennai roads, special buses jam-packed

[1]

The special fleet launched by the state transport corporation (STC) left Koya­m­bedu bus terminus fully crowded on Friday.

The STC has made arr­a­nge­m­ents with the CMDA to park special buses at its place near CMBT so as to decongest the crowded bus terminus.

Meanwhile, vehicles pi­led up on arterial roads le­a­d­ing to CMBT like inner ring road — from Guindy to Anna Nagar — and Poo­n­­­amallee high road for a few kilometers thr­owing traffic out of gear from evening till late night.

With Deepavali round the corner, the STC is operating 6,500 special buses from Friday to cater to the festival rush across the state including 2,850 buses from Chennai.

Since it is the first time that the corporation is operating such a massive number of 2,850 buses, several question were rais­ed on how the CMBT was going to accommodate all those buses.

However, the STC managed to find a solution a day ahead of the operation of special buses by getting CMDA’s nod to use the available vacant space to park the idle buses.

Though it was anno­unced that 2,850 special buses will ply from CMBT during the run up to Deepavali season, all buses will not be operated on a single day and so there will be no space crunch.

“However we had the problem of where to park idle vehicles with the CMBT overflowing with special buses. Now, we have made arrangements with CMDA, that maintains the terminus and the vegetable market, to park buses, which will help decongest the CMBT on all the four festive days,” said a senior transport official.