Whether or not the Southern Railway and the Tamil Nadu Government (through the CMDA) care to make the best use of the MRTS system, there is great interest in it elsewhere.

The Habitat Forum Berlin, School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University and City Connect, an NGO in Chennai have jointly announced a contest for architecture students to submit ideas for the Light House Station on the MRTS.

This neglected station suffers from poor maintenance, although it is close to several educational instutions, the Marina Beach, and shopping malls such as Chennai City Centre. What is more, it is ideal transit point as it is cheek-by-jowl with Dr. RK Salai. MTC in fact operated some services via this station to achieve inter-modal connectivity when the system was extended to Velachery, but quickly discontinued them.

It would be interesting to see how architects view the problem, and what their ideas are.

source: http://www.straphanger.wordpress.com / December 13th, 2011