A third depot for the Metro Bus service began operations on Wednesday at Ekala, Ja-Ela, Hiru News reported. The operational and administrative launch was held under the patronage of Deputy Minister of Transport and Highways Dr Prasanna Gunasena, with Minister of Labour and Deputy Minister of Finance and Planning Dr Anil Jayantha also attending.
Twenty new Metro buses are to be deployed from the depot.
The route
The service runs 29.9 kilometres from Ekala to Thalangama in the Colombo District, with 21 designated Metro bus stops. The named stops are Ekala, Ja-Ela, Weligampitiya, Kandana, Mahabage, Mabola, Hendala, Wattala, Hekitta Junction, Peliyagoda, Dematagoda, Borella, Campbell Park, Rajagiriya, Sethsiripaya, Battaramulla Junction and Thalangama.
That route links the new depot to the project’s first depot, which was vested in the public at Talangama, Battaramulla on 4 September — the two ends of the line are now both depots.
Third of four
The Ekala yard is the third built under the first phase of the project. The second opened at Kadawatha on 7 September, where Transport, Highways and Urban Development Minister Bimal Rathnayake said the service would be extended to Galle, Kandy and Jaffna and that the fleet would reach 172 buses by the end of this year or early next.
At that opening, neither Ada Derana, NewsFirst nor the Daily Mirror could say when the remaining two depots — Ekala and Ratmalana — were due. Ekala has arrived two days later. Ratmalana remains outstanding.
From September, Hiru reports, the Ministry of Transport, Highways and Urban Development, the Sri Lanka Transport Board and Lanka Metro Transit (Pvt) Ltd will jointly operate the Metro Bus service across seven routes.
A listing that disagreed with itself
Hiru’s own listing headlined this story “20 metro buses to Colombo from Ekala,” while the article page is titled “Third Metro Bus depot opens in Ekala.” The article’s own title is the more accurate of the two: the buses run from Ekala to Thalangama rather than into central Colombo, and the depot is the news.
Not reported
Hiru does not give the depot’s construction cost, its capacity, the route number, the fare structure or the frequency of the new service, and does not say when the Ratmalana depot is expected. No other newsroom had filed on the opening; Ada Derana was returning a CloudFront 403 across its whole domain while this was written.
