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:
“There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The art of watching has become mere skill at rapid apperception and understanding of continuously changing visual images. The younger generation has acquired this cinematic perception to an amazing degree.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Loving feels lonely in a violent world,
irrelevant to people burning like last year’s weed
with bellies distended, with fish throats agape
and flesh melting down to glue.
We can no longer shut out the screaming
That leaks through the ventilation system ...”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)