COIMBATORE: Coimbatore is finally on its way to joining the league of
growing urban metropolises in the country with its own urban mass
transit, expected to be a monorail network in the city. The state
government had announced that the monorail network will be introduced in
the city soon after it came to power last year. The Union Urban development Ministry
has already included Coimbatore as one of the tier two cities in
eligible for mass public transport systems like metro rail.

With the
growing number of vehicles on city roads, implementing a mass transport
corridor has become essential.”We should not waste any more
time on the monorail project. The city is facing massive traffic
congestion and an effective alternative mode of transport like monorail
has to be introduced in the city. Apart from reducing the vehicular
congestion, it will also help reduce pollution levels,” said RR
Balasundharam, President, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore.

City Mayor SM Velusamy and Corporation Commissioner TK Ponnusamy were
subject to a presentation on the need for a mass public transport system
in the city. A comparative study was also shown in which Coimbatore was
compared with other tier II cities like Kochi which have already made
headway in implementing proposals for Metro rail and Monorail
respectively. The presentation was conducted based on the Kozhikode
Monorail proposal which is to be inaugurated on September 15, 2012. It
was prepared by Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC).”The presentation was an attempt to get the government to speed up the
process without any further delay.

Such projects will take a long time
to implement,” said R Raveendran, Secretary, RAAC.Three separate monorail networks were suggested, two circular routes,
in the northern and southern parts of the city and a dual linear line
connecting the Eastern and Western parts. The northern route was
designed from Gandhipuram via Ganapathy, Sivananda Colony, Saibaba
Colony, Rs Puram, Town Hall, Railway Station and Gandhipuram. The
southern route suggested was from Podanur via Trichy Road, Sungam, red
Fields, Race Course, Railway Station, Ukkadam and finally looping
through Podanur. A linear line was also proposed from Chinniampalayam,
Airport, CODISSIA, PSG tech, Lakshmi Mill Junction, Gandhipuram, North
Coimbatore, Cowley Brown Road and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

“We have to conduct a detailed study based on which the routes and
other requirements for implementing the project were decided. We have to
consider several aspects including infrastructure and land
requirements,” said TK Ponnusamy, Commissioner, Coimbatore Municipal
Corporation.The city municipal corporation had earlier
conducted a feasibility study to implement Bus Rapid Transport System
through Wilbur Smith Associates a few years ago. They had proposed to
implement the BRTS corridor starting from Avinashi Road and ending at
Mettupalayam Road. The total extent of the corridor was to be about
17.6km out of which 6.87 km was to be an elevated pathway with three
elevated bus stops and 14 bus stops on the ground level. But the project
never materialised due to lack of space to accommodate the
infrastructure requirements.