JOIN USThe wait to ride underground Metro will finally be over
Soon, travel from Baiyappanahalli to Nayandahalli on Mysuru Road through the Central Business District (CBD) seamlessly in 33 minutes flat. The annoying traffic jams and honking are set to become a thing of the past for commuters on the line. Covering 17 stations on a 18.1-km stretch, the travel on the Namma Metro line connecting Bengaluru East to Bengaluru West will cost Rs 40.
The Commissioner for Railway Safety, after inspecting the underground works, has given the green signal to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL), provided it completes a few civil works.
“The East-West Metro corridor is most likely to commence operations in less than 10 days,” U A Vasanth Rao, General Manager (Finance) and spokesperson of BMRCL told Deccan Herald.
Travelling at an average speed of 38 kmph, the train takes about 1.5 minutes to travel from one station to the next, constructed at a maximum gap of 1.2 km. It halts for 30 seconds at each station, he said. Of the 17 stations, five are underground - Cubbon Park (Minsk Square), Vidhana Soudha, Sir M Visvesvaraya (Central College), Kempegowda Intersection (at Majestic) and City Railway Station.
Rao said the BMRCL has 50 train-sets, each with three coaches. At present, eight trains will be operational on the East-West corridor and seven in the North-South corridor with a running gap of 10 minutes. “Depending on the patronage, we will make use of more trains and there is a capacity to run a train every 2.5 minutes,” he said.
“The stretch connects East and West Bengaluru via the CBD. It also houses many government offices, court complexes, colleges and corporate offices. Hence, we expect at least five lakh passengers by year-end and a million by June next year. We will expand train operation hours based on traffic,” he informed. The BMRCL, which has spent Rs 13,845 crore for the entire Phase I project, is expected to recover the cost in about 10 years. In addition to the revenue from passengers as travel fare, BMRCL generates income from renting out spaces in the stations and through selling advertisement space, he said.
Intersection
The work on the small but crucial stretch from Mantri Square Sampige Road (North-South corridor) to Kempegowda Intersection will be completed in July, Rao said. We expect better passenger traffic in the North-South corridor once the work is complete. It also helps to cross the East-West corridor and North-South corridor (connecting up to Peenya and Nagasandra).