Sholinganallur to be metro hub on OMR

Chennai: Sholinganallur will become the metrorail hub on OMR in two years, with interchange stations linking many city and suburban areas, provisions for a future link to East Coast Road (ECR) and a grade separator to ease vehicular traffic and allow quick access to stations. It is part of the 20km elevated line from Nehru Nagar to Siruseri Sipcot with 19 stations. OMR’s IT Corridor will be linked in the 45.4km Madhavaram Milk Colony-Siruseri Sipcot corridor-3 of the 116.1km phase-2. Officials said the OMR line is likely to be ready by 2026-end, six months after the original deadline with the changes made to the design in junctions such as Sholinganallur causing the potential delay.Sholinganallur, one of the busiest junctions leading to four different routes to areas such as Navalur, Adyar, Medavakkam via Perumbakkam and ECR via Kalaignar Karunanidhi Road, has more than one lakh vehicles and nearly 3,000 pedestrains crossing it every day. Here, CMRL is building two elevated stations on corridor-3 and 5 of phase-2, making it an interchange and giving commuters access to areas such as Lighthouse, Porur and Madhavaram through direct train rides. They can also switch platforms at Lighthouse or Alapakkam to reach T Nagar and Kodambakkam or switch corridors at Alandur to reach Airport, Egmore or Central. A second arm of the elevated corridor on OMR will be extended from Sholinganallur to Kalaignar Karunanidhi Salai for 80m-100m as a provision for future expansion to ECR. “We are acquiring a big piece of land for parking, station entry/exit and property development as stations will come up at Sholinganallur junction,” a CMRL official said.Below the metro corridors, a grade separator will be built to ease vehicular congestion and give motorists quick access to localities such as Karapakkam, Medavakkam, Semmencheri and East Coast Road as well as metro stations. CMRL will build the flyover for Tamil Nadu Road Development Company Ltd (TNRDC). OMR residents said metrorail will reduce travel time by half during peak hours and getting to transport hubs such as the airport, egmore or central stations will become easier. “It takes around 30 minutes to cross the junction during peak hours. The signals are long and there is a lot of vehicular traffic at each signal which means some of them might wait twice at the same signal. A grade separator will hopefully put an end to this hassle, reduce travel time and save fuel. With metrorail providing a direct link to many city areas, more people, including the IT employees working on OMR, use it and reduce vehicular traffic,” said P Harish, a Sholinganallur resident.