Through a video conference, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated in Chennai the last 10-km stretch of the city’s Corridor 1, between AG-DMS and Washermenpet.
The section is entirely underground constructed and has 8 station, completing the existing elevated corridor from the airport to Little Mount station. The new section has a transit hub at Chennai Central station offering transport links with Southern suburban railway and to the Green Line (Corridor 2). The Blue Line has also connections to other transport modes such as bus network, the suburban railway network and MRTs lines.
The construction works, with a total value of EUR 1.76 billion, took seven years. This section has completed Chennai Metro Rail’s phase I project that has a total length of 45 km.
The passengers have a direct connection from Washermanpet station to Chennai airport, traveling 21 km within 45 minutes. According to the estimations, in 2026, the daily ridership on the Airport- Washermanpet line (Corridor 1, 21 km) is 542,400 passengers.
Chennai Metro Rail is responsible for city’s seven-lines network. Currently, the company is working on the second stage of the network initially covering 52 km for which Japan International Cooperation Agency provided a loan for construction works, scheduled to start this year.
The company has also in-principle approval from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), New Development Bank (NDB) and World Bank for the second phase.
The entire metro network to be constructed under the Phase 2 involves the construction of 119 km divided into three corridors: Madhavaram – Sholinganallur, Madhavaram – CMBT and Light House – Meenakshi college.
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