A large section of residents in Vanuvampet, Nanganallur, Ullagaram-Puzhuthivakkam and Moovarasampet are facing severe hardship to reach the central business district of Anna Salai.
The drastic reduction of direct bus services by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) from these residential localities has forced the residents to travel in different modes of transport to reach their offices located in and off Anna Salai.
Anirudh Kumar, a resident of Nanganallur, said two important bus services plying on routes 52K and 52P used to cater to the office-going population bound for Anna Salai. He said while 52K service has been stopped, the bus service of 52P was reduced from four buses to two buses forcing a large number of office goers to wait for over 30 to 45 minutes daily.
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Narrow arterial roads
The residential areas covering Nanganallur, Ullagaram-Puzhuthivakkam and Moovarasampet, have been suffering from bad and narrow arterial roads resulting in the MTC finding it difficult to operate bus services. Adding to the problem is the traffic arrangements done for construction of Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) on the southern arm of the Inner Ring Road leading to the traffic congestion, officials said.
Raghavan, who commutes by MTC from Nanganallur, complained that the reduction of several bus services by the MTC including the 52K (Keelkattalai to Broadway), 76 (Medavakkam Koot road to CMBT), B51 (Tambaram to T. Nagar via Nanganallur) and M18C (Keelkattalai to T. Nagar) have left residents to spend more on share autos. He also rued the non-availability of share autos from St. Thomas Mount railway station.
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Denying the stopping of bus services from Nanganallur, a senior MTC officials said some bus routes are being cut off due to poor patronage.
The need for increasing the bus services to the central business district would be studied and necessary steps would be taken, he added.