JOIN USSeven lakh commuters used east-west corridor in 7 days
Metro stations on the east-west corridor continue to see heavy footfalls. In the last seven days, almost seven lakh commuters travelled on the east-west corridor.
This comes as no surprise as the average speed on the city’s roads is less than 20 kmph and Metro is a much faster option.
“My travel time to office has come down to half. The journey is smooth and trains are air-conditioned, which is not so in other modes of transport,” said Tharakeshwara Rao, who uses Metro from Ulsoor.
Anupama and her colleague Beena, who work near Cubbon Park, had a similar opinion. “We have no complaints of traffic jams and we will be happier if BMTC provides feeder buses at Baiyappanahalli to Ramamurthy Nagar,” Anupama said.
Arun Bhardwaj, who works for a tech park in Whitefield, said, “I am lucky to be able to reach SV Road from Vijayanagar in half an hour. I will never travel on my two-wheeler for work. I have had enough of the painful journey in the past,” he said.
The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) on Saturday said that there is an average ridership of 96,000 on the purple line (Baiyappanahalli-Mysuru Road), thus generating a revenue of Rs 40 lakh a day on the purple line.
The stretch saw almost 7 lakh commuters in the last seven days, U A Vasanth Rao, BMRCL spokesperson, told Deccan Herald. The response to the green line (Nagasandra-Mantri Square Sampige Road) too is encouraging, he said. Rao pointed out that BMRCL will increase of frequency of trains in the rush hours after a study.
“There are no immediate plans to increase the coaches. We will run trains every six to seven minutes in the peak hours. There are 15 trains on the purple line and we will use a few more very soon,” he said. Each train can accommodate 975 people, he said.
There were long queues at the token counters at different stations in the peak hours of Saturday, especially due to the IPL match at the Chinnaswamy stadium. All those who had a smart card were spared from waiting in the queues.
“A minimum of 2,500 smart cards are sold on an average every day, while a total of 1.75 lakh cards have been sold till now,” Rao said.
The spokesperson said that the direction boards will be placed at the exit points of all underground stations in a week, as requested by commuters.
While there were long queues at the ‘poorly maintained’ toilets in some stations, Rao promised that sitting arrangements would be made at the underground stations, depending on passenger movement.