The Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System, a state-owned subsidiary of Indian Railways, is a metropolitan elevated railway line operated by Southern Railway (India). It is the first elevated railway line in India. Although it is segregated from the Chennai Suburban Railway, they both are operated by Southern Railway and are integrated in a wider rapid transit network. Built at a cost of 11,710 million, the line currently runs within the city limits from Chennai Beach to Velachery, covering a distance of 19.34 km (12.02 mi) with 17 stations, with an average daily ridership of 76,800 passengers.
Opened in 1995 and extended twice in 2004 and 2007, the system's poor connectivity with other transit modes have had an impact on its ridership, drawing much criticism to its cost-effectiveness. The Chennai Metro project, currently under construction, is expected to improve transit access in the city and will connect with the Chennai MRTS. To maximise its potential, the MRTS is currently being extended to St. Thomas Mount, and its operations may be transferred over to the Chennai Metro when it opens in 2015.
Read more about Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System: Fares and Ticketing, Rolling Stock, Criticism, Trivia
Famous quotes containing the words mass, rapid, transit and/or system:
“If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)
“It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The emancipation is observed, in the islands, to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“Psychoanalysis is an attempt to examine a person’s self-justifications. Hence it can be undertaken only with the patient’s cooperation and can succeed only when the patient has something to gain by abandoning or modifying his system of self-justification.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)