Bangalore Metro

  HC to state: Set up expert body to prevent tree felling for Metro  A committee of environment, science and technology experts should be constituted to examine if metro rail projects can be undertaken without felling trees, directed the Karnataka High Court to the state government. This committee should examine every method to save trees; only if this is impossible, should trees be cut, said the court. The division bench comprising acting Chief Justice L Narayana Swamy and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar passed the interim order on a PIL filed in 2018 jointly by Dattatraya T Devare and the…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship How many people in Bengaluru use Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Company (BMTC) buses, which are perceived to be the lifeline of the city, everyday? BMTC figures say the ridership is 51 lakh. This means BMTC, with its 6650 buses, sells 51 lakh tickets daily from the 70,892 trips it undertakes. Each bus undertakes an average of 5-6 round trips per day. There are demands for increasing BMTC buses. But will more buses help? Look at the city’s roads - the traffic crawls at such a low speed that even walking can…

Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has released its 2017-18 annual report online last week in its entirety. The report details BMRCL's efforts to keep up the pace of construction and other issues. Six new stretches of the Metro cover 72 km and 61 stations. Two extensions of the already existing purple line on the west and east sides, two extensions of the already operational green line on the north and south sides, and establishment of the new Yellow Line and Red Line form six stretches totally. While the civil contracts have been awarded for all the depots costing Rs…

Growing up in Bengaluru is no guarantee that you know the city. Though I have spent all my life here, there are parts of it which are still unfamiliar, and once in a while, I get to experience a facet of the city that I had not seen before. The #ModaluTrainBeku Rail Yatra, organised by Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) on August 31st 2018, allowed me a glimpse into Bengaluru’s local train network. The Yatra, from Yeshwanthpur station to Heelalige station, was organised as part of ongoing campaigns to introduce commuter trains for local commutes. On August 31st, I joined the…

With Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s maiden budget reviving the pod taxi for five stretches in Bengaluru at a cost of Rs 1445 crores, several eyebrows have been raised in questions over what makes the government favour it as a possible solution to the city’s traffic nightmare. Interestingly, the idea of pod taxis isn't as new as one would imagine. Indian cities have seen similar experiments before: The Chembur - Wadala - Maharaja Chowk monorail project, the airport feeder metro built by the Delhi Metro as a PPP project which was subsequently converted into the orange line. Both have had their…

As the controversy on the location of the upcoming Cantonment metro station continues, Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) has left many questions unanswered. While a citizens’ group has been demanding metro station right in front of the railway station where it was planned originally,  another is demanding it at the alternate location proposed by BMRC, at Bamboo Bazaar. With BMRC refusing to answer questions raised by citizens and the media, the suspense remains. Cantonment metro station was originally supposed to come up right opposite the Cantonment railway station, under its parking lot, as per the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for…

Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) is facing the public ire on the integration of Metro stations with other modes of transport. But this is not the only issue troubling the city's fastest public transport provider. Amith Pallavoor Subramaniam, a Citizen Matters reader, writes: During peak hours, Metro trains are packed, and the insolent home guards push commuters like sardines. A disaster like Elphinstone is waiting to happen. Some of the issues where BMRCL could learn from Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai's local trains and Metro: (1) Run trains till midnight: Kindly note that Bengaluru is no longer the provincial town of…

I am no stranger to metro systems. I’ve up hiked the spiral staircases of Paris’ metro, impatiently waited in a dark tunnel when my line broke down while on the London Tube, poured buckets of sweat in the graffiti adorned underground train to Rome’s neighboring beach town, fervently watched street performers in the bowels of Washington D.C.’s network of underground metro tunnels and have spent much of my time riding my own city’s eccentrically named Seattle Link Light rail through canopies of tree cover and rain specked windows. I have traveled some of the biggest cities of the world on…

Did you know that if you live or rent a premise in the corridor of Metro Phase-II and next phases, you could avail many compensations when the land acquisition goes on and the construction work starts? Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) Ltd has come up with the new Resettlement Policy Framework for land acquisition, which is in line with amended land acquisition policy-2013. Extract of the section that explains some interesting components of compensation, from the BMRCL document: Inconvenience Allowance: This is a onetime allowance paid to all project affected persons losing structure and land, for the inconvenience caused due…

Finally, the first phase of Bengaluru Metro is going to be fully functional on June 18th 2017, with the inauguration of final leg running from Swastik station to Yelachenahalli to be done on June 17th, by the President of India. That’s a major relief for many people, including me! I'm a new entrant to the Metro User Club, and a skeptic-turned-admirer. It all started with me waiting in the bus stop in front of Jayachamarajendra Polytechnic College, for a BMTC bus to take me to Kempegowda Bus Station, and not seeing a single bus for 10 minutes. Spending more than…