After all the drum beating and trumpeting about a high tech and modern Metro railway system, the least one can say is that the travel experience is very miserable, below par. The services may pick up in the coming months, but as of now, the situation is bad.
I found this after traveling and going around for several hours yesterday. After all these years of preparations, MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) and Metro Railway Corporation have failed to provide basic services just a few yards from their headquarters. And in the most crucial area around the BKC (Bandra Kurla Complex) Metro station.
Reaching Bandra Kurla Complex Metro station or coming out of it can be a life-threatening experience. Not just the Metro authorities, others must take the blame for the disastrous state of affairs. This is what we get after all the humiliation we were subjected to by Metro rail operations for years, the monstrous traffic jams, and the huge losses to the BEST bus network because its services were affected.
This is the situation four days after Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Metro 3 link now connecting BKC with Aarey Colony JVLR station.
One takes a bus from the east side of Bandra station and gets down at the Income Tax bus stop, which is almost opposite the BKC Metro station on the other side of the main carriageway, the Bandra Kurla Road, with continuous heavy traffic. There is simply no way you can cross the road to the station without a serious threat of injury or death. There is no traffic junction. It could have been easily provided.
The nightmare starts from the time you step out of the bus and try to walk to the point some distance away. The footpath to that point is completely closed, so you have to walk with heavy traffic coming from behind you, which is deadly; you have to be on guard constantly.
Then the crossing point. There is no signal, so you have to dodge any number of vehicles to reach the middle of the main road and then go through a similar nightmare to the other side. There is no signage anywhere near the bus stop or on the other side about the location of the BKC station. You have to keep asking or refer to your mobile phone; many do not have a mobile phone, and in any case, the Metro is not affordable for ordinary people.
The trains were nearly empty, as I saw during my two journeys to Terminal T2 and back. There was not a single ordinary person; all were well-to-do. The usual rush of merrymakers one saw on the opening days of the Andheri-Borivli stretch has been conspicuous by their absence, clearly because even other stations on this stretch are not easy to access.
Outside the BKC station, there is no one to guide you, and no signage. Much humiliation and inconvenience await you. No lift or escalator is visible, so you walk deep down many steps, then find a board that says the lift is not working; it is working from another point. By then, it is too late.
Outside T2 Metro station, there is no signage absolutely about how to reach the airport; luckily and surprisingly, it is not too far; one can walk there.
There is a stinking nallah with much garbage stuck inside, but at least the water is not stagnant. Surprisingly, there were some lovely egret birds on a plant.
The Metro stations are utterly drab, sterile, no color; all one sees is the technology that went into building the Metro, as if that is something to boast about, as if it does not exist anywhere. No murals, no pictures of the city, nothing, lackluster, comparing even to other Metro stations in India. And to think that the Moscow Metro is an absolute beauty. One can understand the constraints in Mumbai, but blaming the Aarey agitation for the delay is so patently wrong, unjustified; why then even now are so many stations not fully ready, escalators, lifts, toilets not functioning?
On the way back, as one comes out of the BKC Metro station, again death and injury stare at you. There is simply no safe way to come out safely onto the main road to get into a car, taxi, auto, or bus; no footpath, you have to walk on the busy carriageway with its crazily driven cars. There is no signage about the nearest bus stop. So after all the years of talk of last-mile connectivity, not even basics have been provided.
The entire Metro 3 line, after day-long operations, carried just 20,500 commuters. This is ludicrous; the authorities are making a laughing stock of themselves. It takes less than 25 BEST buses to carry that many commuters in a day. And with all as many as eight cars or bogies per train, so many trips and such poor numbers.
Also, the claims of Metro all these years are proving so hollow. They claim this service is energy efficient. Let them give us basic facts. With such high energy used the whole day, it is carrying such few numbers.
There are multiple hollow claims. One of these is we are connecting the unconnected. This is so false; they seem to know nothing of our urban transport history and background.
BEST has been carrying commuters over long, long distances for decades, for example, from one distant western suburb to another distant suburb on the eastern route.
It is clear that the Metro was simply not ready for the inauguration, which was such a major political election gimmick. One can understand glitches here and there. But how can a metro train come to a halt for half an hour, as is happening sometimes in the last few days? And this is what we get from a brand new product.
Please, we deserve better.
