Ramps for luge athletes on East Coast Road?

The bus shelter at Uthandi where what looks like a descent ramp is broken and truncated. Besides, the floor of the shelter is too narrow and the pillars too close apart for a wheelchair to be moved around comfortably. The image was taken on January 30, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
PRINCE FREDERICK

Would anyone in their right mind ask a wheelchair-bound person to perform the manoeuvres of a luge athlete? Two line agencies throw a gauntlet as ridiculous as that to the wheelchair-bound on a section of East Coast Road (ECR), one agency doing the actual throwing and the other in a position to countermand it, doing an Ostrich.

On ECR, between Panaiyur and Mahabalipuram, one would come upon these quaint-looking bus shelters with pitched, corrugated metal roofs and concrete benches. And if the zooming lens is held closer, one would see ramps, actually what passes off for ramps.

Let us narrow down the focus to three bus stops (the wheels moving in the direction of Mahabalipuram) on the section of ECR between Panaiyur and Uthandi alone, just to make sure the two line agencies are found in the same picture.

Enter Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC), a special purpose vehicle. TNRDC manages ECR from Akkarai to Mahabalipuram and is the architect of these bus shelters, which hold up against the elements commendably but score poorly on its inclusivity design quotient. Ramps exist, but not all ramps are easy to use. Besides, the overall design of these “inclusive bus shelters” ignores most facets of accessibility for the wheelchair-bound from the bus stop to the bus and vice versa; and these include sufficient space on the floor of the bus shelter and a mechanism for the commuter to slide their wheelchair from floor of the bus shelter straight on to the floor of the bus.

These bus shelters instead have two components, an ascent ramp and a descent ramp, the latter hard to use by anyone, let alone the wheelchair-bound.

First stop

The Nainarkuppam bus shelter offers an ascent ramp with a comfortable gradient. It has a long run, and a controlled rise. Ramps in the ratio of 1:10 (the first number denoting the rise and the second, the run) make for a comfortable gradient; when the second number goes up, the comfort factor is upped.

The descent ramp, short and steep, is what seeks to turn the wheelchair-bound into a luge athlete. Words would not suffice to communicate the inadequacy in the design; the picture would.

The descent ramp at the bus shelter in Uthandi plummets to a new low. It hardly resembles a ramp, and short by birth, it has become shorter still by damage. Broken, the ramp resembles a thread of thought that stopped woefully short of conveying the meaning. Again, only the picture can manage an adequate description.

The ramps and the overall effort at including everyone illustrate tokenism, an act of extending the hand of inclusivity to the differently abled without stretching it enough for them to take hold of it.

Now, enter the other line agency, Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC). GCC limits extend up to Uthandi on ECR. The question to be asked: though TNRDC manages this road and therefore takes responsibility for the bus shelters, should GCC intervene and take charge of the “inclusive” bus shelters on ECR within its limits?

It probably should because these bus shelters strike a jarring note against the narrative in the central parts of GCC limits where well-designed inclusive bus shelters (example: Ice House bus stop near Vivekanandar Illam bus stop on Kamarajar Salai) are becoming common sight.

The ramp that refuses to cover one ‘step’

 
| Photo Credit:
PRINCE FREDERICK

At this bus shelter on East Coast Road in Meeran Nagar, which comes under Kanathur Reddy Kuppam panchayat, one ramp does not even reach the floor of the bus shelter, demonstrating a huge flaw in the design, not to mention the steep gradient, a challenge to even an able-bodied person trying to walk down its surface, let alone a differently abled person seated in a wheelchair trying to navigate it. The section of East Coast Road from Akkarai to Mahabalipuram comes under management of the special purpose vehicle Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC); and the installation and maintenance of bus shelters on this stretch are part of its responsibilities.