Chennai Metro Rail will soon build a multi-level car parking facility at Thirumangalam Metro Rail station, to meet the increasing demand over the last few months.
According to officials of CMRL, they are considering building a facility that can accommodate about 100 vehicles. “Every day, nearly 10,000 people use this station and it is one of the busiest stations in the phase I project. The parking lot gets filled too soon during the peak hours and many commuters feel disappointed when they don’t have space to park their vehicles and if it continues this way, we may lose traffic,” an official said.
Thousands of people from Kolathur, Ambattur, Mogappair, Padi and other neighbouring areas reach this station and head to their workplace, especially to Anna Salai and Guindy, officials said. Also, there are many who also use this parking lot and walk down to VR Mall, sources said.
“There is some space allocated for commercial development inside the station premises and soon, it will be given out on rent to a firm. This multi-level parking will be built adjacent to it,” he added.
Only recently, CMRL opened a multi-level parking for two wheelers at Meenambakkam Metro Rail station. But it was started as a pilot project and the facility has a capacity to to hold only 10 vehicles. “We will continue to monitor it for a few more weeks and if we are happy with how it is used, we will think about extending it to other stations too, where it is needed,” the official said.
In the last few months, Chennai Metro Rail’s passenger traffic has been consistently and gradually increasing and now, nearly 1.15 lakh people travel on a daily basis.
