MMRDA holds “public hearings” by giving a six-day notice with four days of holidays! – Part III  

MMRDA distributed an information sheet which stated that the fully underground Metro III will be 33.5 km and have 27 conveniently located stations. It would be having interconnectivity with Central Railway at VT (CSTM), with Western Railway at Churchgate, Grant Road and Mumbai Central stations, with Metro I at Marol Naka and Metro II at BKC and with the Monorail at Jacob Circle (Sant Gadge Maharaj Chowk).

The construction would be by Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), NATM or cut & cover. It did not mention which all stretches would be by TBM and C&C methods but they mentioned during the proceedings that each station of C&C would take about a year and a half to construct.

A typical underground station would be fully air-conditioned, will have a concourse level and the platform level. Entry and exit, the information sheet said, will be by escalators and lifts, but MMRDA did not mention anything about a staircase. It will be designed for eight-coach trains. Station fire and emergency systems will be designed as per international standards (NFPA-130).

The information sheet tries to compare benefits of the Metro Line III with a motorcar trip and suburban rail travel. The comparison is faulty as it mentions a trip from Colaba, Cuffe Parade to Mumbai Airport; the directly connected alignment of the Metro with suburban rail for which there will be two road components of travel. It also mentions the time taken by a motorcar during peak period. Off-peak period travel time by a motorcar will actually take merely 40 minutes while it mentions it as 100 minutes, obviously for peak period travel. Metro travel is mentioned as 50 minutes, which, considering the 1.24 km average spacing of stations, limited permissible acceleration and deceleration, will give an average speed of not more than 30 kmph. This would mean, including dwell time, the airport trip will take not less than 70 minutes. Of course they have not tried to compare travel time with a BRTS, which can have an average speed of 25 to 30 kmph.

While the information sheet envisages the project completion by 2019, it says that ridership will be 13.87 lakh per day by 2025 and 16.99 lakh by 2031. It is silent on ridership in 2019. It does not give the peak period capacity in terms of pphpd (passengers per hour per direction) for the given frequency of an eight-coach train.

MMRDA stated that the Detail Project Report is ready. The advertisement of 5 April 2012 had mentioned that Mr Ramana could be contacted for any additional information. This sounds quite proper but when one sees the short time of six days between 5th and 10th had within that, four days of holidays—Mahavir Jayanti, Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leaving only Monday and Tuesday to even approach Mr Ramana, the whole hearing could be termed as farce. Despite this, the number who attended the hearing was reasonably good; the small Hall of the College of Insurance was full.

Issues raised by citizens varied from alignment and wanting the Charkop-Bandra made underground to issues of rehabilitation and Airport stations ‘gifted’ to GVK, the “owners/managers” of Chhattrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) to the issue concerned with Sustainable Urban Mobility.

Nitin Killawalla, Architect from Juhu Vile Parle area spearheading the campaign for having underground Metro Line II instead of planned elevated, suggested that Line II and Line III be merged and made underground right from Cuffe Parade, Colaba to Bandra and bifurcate one line continuing to Charkop and the other to Airport and SEEPZ. The Bandra-Mankhurd route could continue as planned. He cited hourly figures of boardings or alightings in the sections Charkop to Bandra to be 1,25,000 and Bandra to Cuffe Parade to be 1,89,000 in 2031. By doing this, he stated that the entire stabling yard or car shed planned in the Aarey “green” zone could be averted, using the Charkop area as planned for Line II.

Isn’t the site of Charkop car shed planned at Lalji Pada having an R&R issue?

The alignment going to SEEPZ via domestic and international airports passes through slums of Chimatpada and Sahar village. Representatives from these areas articulated their apprehensions of R&R. Former corporator from the area, Mr Almeida brought out the fact that GVK was given the land at a very insignificant price and was given development rights for three stations passing through the Airport touching domestic and international terminals and Sahar Road where the cargo section is located. To this, someone from Girgaum said that they too could be allowed to develop their ‘stations’ and commercially exploit them! Apparently the lands taken by MIDC from “bhoomiputras” were not compensated for in terms of R&R. They too wanted to come into the fold of R&R of the project.

Looking into the location of the Airport Stations, it gives the impression that the distance an air passenger will have to traverse will be so high that they may continue with their current mode of cars and taxis. In Delhi, the Airport metro train carries barely a score of people although the frequency is as high as 12 minutes. The reason is that the distance to be traversed to the metro station is long and takes 30 minutes to walk to after deplaning.

The author of this article reiterated the issue of Sustainable Urban Mobility. He briefly put forth the points he had written to the ministry of urban development about six weeks back, which has been covered in these columns “Metro Line 3 – Some questions need to be asked” and “Mumbai Metro Projects Attract Modifications by Centre”.

He said “As far as Mumbai is concerned, there seems to be little attention given to Sustainable Urban Mobility. All projects taken up seem to be of high cost, of long delivery duration and serving minuscule population of the city, while the majority of population suffers due to relief giving projects not being considered at all. Annual fatality figure of nearly 4,000 on overcrowded suburban rail system seems to be an irrelevant issue as much as the density of these commuters.

In a city where 44% walk to work, 3.1% use bicycles and most, including many using personal motor vehicles (only 2.8% use motorcars) use public transport or walk, focus seems to be on this small percent of population using personal motorized transport. Even the Mumbai Metro Master Plan and Mumbai Monorail Master Plan and the grand Garland Road Plan will not address the transportation and quality of life issues adequately or early.”

He recounted the twelve points from his letter to MoUD:
1.    Line 3 has 27 stations in 33.5 km length, giving an average station spacing of 1.24 km.

2.    Six- coach train will require about 135m of station length

3.    It is presumed that access to station platform will be through staircases, escalators and elevators. Their location on the roads would curtail the road pedestrian movements significantly unless the DPR has shown how it will not.

4.    DPR is not available for comments.

5.    At what depth would stations be and if they are at higher levels, then what is the method of construction envisaged?

6.    It is assumed that Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) will be used to bore the tunnel. Where would the TBM inserted into ground to commence boring and how would the excavated material removed and disposed off?

7.    How would the rakes be stabled? Where would the cars shed be located?

8.    What are the methods of providing ventilation and air-conditioning? Power requirement, how will this be met?

9.    What are the disaster mitigation plans and disaster management plans?

10.    There is a seismic faultline passing through the geological structure of Mumbai. How have they addressed this issue?

11.    Unlike the earlier Line 3 alignment which was going through the erstwhile mill areas of the island city that did not have railway line, the new alignment avoids that completely and runs almost parallel to the Western Railway line till Mumbai Central and Mahalaxmi stations. Intention may have been to bring it closer to Malabar Hill and Cumballa Hill where personal motorcar usage is very high. However, it is highly unlikely that personal motorcar users will use the Metro if the stations are not passing very close to their dwellings. The route needs to be reviewed from an overall perspective of reducing personal motorcar usage.

12.    There is no mention of how stations will be fed with commuters or how they will be dispersed. Whether they propose to provide for parking cars and if so, the very purpose of providing public transport through Metro gets defeated if one provides these car parks. Firstly these will be totally inadequate, forcing people to either park on road sides or use cars for full distances.

Of all these points, SRV Srinivas responded to the point on Disaster Management aspects in very general terms but did not mention what mitigation measures were being adopted. Mr Madan mentioned that they were going to adopt designs for eight-coach train as against six-coach they had been mentioning earlier. This would mean that the station length will be 180 m.

The positive part was that they all acknowledged the fact that the Metro Rail will take enormous time and nodded to the comment that Sustainable Urban Mobility must get priority in the form of making infrastructure for walking, cycling and the BRTS. How far the affirmative nod will take matters to reality is anybody’s guess.

(Sudhir Badami is a civil engineer and transportation analyst. He is on Government of Maharashtra’s Steering Committee on BRTS for Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s Technical Advisory Committee on BRTS for Mumbai. He is also member of Research & MIS Committee of Unified Mumbai Metropolitan Transport Authority. He was member of Bombay High Court appointed erstwhile Road Monitoring Committee (2006-07). While he has been an active campaigner against Noise for more than a decade, he is a strong believer in functioning democracy. He can be contacted on email at [email protected])