by D. Dhanuraj
metro rail debate has been the full moon talk in many a seminars. There are supporters, pessimists and theoreticians. In one of the recent seminars where I was a resource person, a question has been asked from the audience what is my opinion on Metro rail for Cochin. I was baffling what category of the above mentioned, i should represent? for a moment, i regained the confidence as a policy researcher and announced; as a Kochiate, i am happy to see metro in my city so that it will be positioned amongst the metro linked cities in the world. but as a researcher, i dont recommend metro as it can be a wasteful exercise for a city like Cochin. while the audience was so happy with the former stand, some of them questioned my the latter statement. then i told them; if you are not ready to listen to me, there is no point asking me this question.
I would strongly advocate for BRTS. What we need is dedicated bus routes and continuous services for city of Cochin. this can be done with a fraction of amount that we may spend for metro. for the metro lovers, i will suggest, let it come. But we may not survive for such a long period til the metro is commissioned until an alternative arrangement is made. so BRTS can be a short term solution while Metro can be a long term.
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