Rs 2L crore needed in 25 years for comprehensive mobility plan

CHENNAI: The time being taken for the peak-hour journey of Chennaites is likely to see a cut by a third bringing average travel in the core city down from 60 to 40 minutes and household transport spending reduced from 15% to 10% of income. This is what the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) cleared by the state government aims to achieve over the next 23 years. Not just that, by 2048, every household in the old metropolitan zone is expected to be within 500 metres of areas covered by frequent public transport, up from 64% now, while transport-related carbon emissions are targeted to fall by 45%. The CMP lays out a long-term blueprint to transform Chennais mobility ecosystem into a seamless, sustainable and digitally connected network serving the expanding Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA). A sweeping investment of Rs 2.27 lakh crore will be required over the next 25 years to implement the plan, which integrates metro expansion, bus modernisation, last-mile connectivity, digital governance, and pedestrian-first urban design. At the centre of the transformation is a strengthened Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA), which will serve as the nodal agency for all urban mobility projects. Every new road, rail, or mass transit proposal must align with the CMP and obtain clearance from CUMTAs empowered committee, chaired by the finance secretary - a move designed to eliminate duplication and ensure coherence across agencies. To streamline funding, a dedicated urban transport fund will be set up under CUMTA to allocate resources across departments. A parking management unit will also be created to oversee cluster-based smart parking systems, integrated into a universal parking app. The CMP adopts a pedestrian first approach, mandating the inclusion of footpaths in all new road and metro corridor projects. Operations and maintenance contracts will include encroachment removal and regular upkeep of pedestrian pathways. Digital integration forms another key pillar of the plan. A unified platform, Digital Chennai, will host mobility databases and real-time updates from all transport and road-owning agencies. Departments will be required to share data with CUMTA for centralised planning, monitoring and service optimisation. In a significant institutional change, the state government will take over the MRTS network and merge it under Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL). A proposed Tamil Nadu Rail Development Corporation (TN-Rail) will focus on long-term rail infrastructure planning, while a new division within CMRL will deliver Metro to the Doorstep services - covering last-mile connectivity within a 5 km radius and cycle-sharing systems. Public transport capacity is expected to expand sharply. Bus ridership is projected to grow from 39 lakh daily passengers to 65 lakh by 2048, while metro usage could rise from 3.2 lakh to 45 lakh per day. Suburban rail ridership is forecast to more than triple to 35 lakh. Intermodal transfer times at key junctions would be cut by 75% from 20 minutes to just five through improved station-area design and pedestrian linkages within 500 metres of every metro stop.