The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Proposal for another bus stand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Proposal for another bus stand

The Corporation's plan for a stand exclusively for omni buses at Grass Market in the city offers a solution to parking woes, writes V.S. Palaniappan.

Like any other city, Coimbatore is witnessing a fast growth. Decreasing carriageway owing to encroachments and increase in vehicular traffic makes the city's traffic managers work overtime to ensure smooth flow of traffic. With a huge industrial potential and the resultant growth, the city planners are racing against time to work out solutions for traffic problems.

Even as the city gets ready for a satellite bus terminus at entry points of the city on all arterial roads, parking of omni buses at busy roads for loading parcels and for enabling passengers to board them remains a cause for concern.

A drive through the city's arterial Dr. Nanjappa Road (from Park Gate to GP Theatre Signal on Sathyamangalam Road) and near the Express Bus Stand in Gandhipuram (the commercial hub) proves it.

Nearly 80 omni buses of over 20 operators are parked along the roads every evening occupying a substantial portion of the carriageway available for traffic flow.

A number of omni buses operate services to Chennai, Nagercoil, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin within the State and Pondicherry, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam outside the State.

People who cannot get a confirmed ticket in trains rely heavily on these omni buses.

The bus operators cite the convenience of the passengers to justify the parking of buses along the road at busy areas.

To minimise the entry of mofussil buses, the Corporation had built satellite bus stands at Ukkadam and Singanallur.

Buses to Pollachi, Udumalpet, Palani, Dindigul, Theni and other areas besides those bound for Munnar and Palakkad in Kerala operate from Ukkadam.

The Singanallur Bus stand was built for buses to Tirupur via Palladam, besides those bound for destinations such as Madurai, Karur, Tiruchi and to other places in the southern districts.

While the Ukkadam Bus Stand is fully put into use, the one at Singanallur is under utilised.

The Corporation initially eyed the exhibition ground for construction of an omni bus stand but the land was inadequate.

The adjoining land along the Central Jail could not be used because of security perceptions.

When the traffic problems acquired menacing proportions, the proposal for a stand for omni buses was revived.

As an ad-hoc measure, the operators sought permission to use the `road less travelled' near the Pappanaickenpalayam electric crematorium and even as the proposal was under active consideration, some of the operators went to the extent of using vacant lands on lease to park their buses and bring them to the roads just 10 minutes before the departure time.

The Corporation in its budget announced the proposal for construction of a bus stand exclusively for omni buses on 1.83 acres at Grass Market at the Radhakrishnan Road - Sathyamangalam Road junction at Rs. 1 crore.

At present only Chennai has such a facility in the State and Coimbatore would become a trendsetter for the rest of the Corporations to follow suit, the City Traffic police pointed out.

The Corporation has also planned another bus stand on Mettuppalayam Road for buses bound for Mettuppalayam and Udhagamandalam.

This will ease congestion at Gandhipuram.

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