Metro-3 to result in 4.5 to 6.5 lakh less daily vehicle trips

Once ready, the Metro-3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) line will result in 4.5 to 6.5 lakh less daily vehicle trips, Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) Managing Director Ashwini Bhide said on Tuesday.

The IAS officer shared the statistics while interacting with citizens at ‘Social Sanchar’ organised by TogetherVCAN at the Bombay Yacht Club near the Gateway of India.

While elucidating the environmental benefits of the 33.5 km corridor, Bhide highlighted how the project could take some load off the city’s congested roads.

“This is the project that will take care of pollution in the city. It has the capacity to take off almost 4.5 lakh vehicle trips off the road, to begin with, which can reach up to 6.5 lakh vehicle trips,” the official said.

Further, in addition to reducing daily fuel consumption by 2.4 lakh litres and the overall noise levels, the project will also help cut air pollution.

“It has a tremendous ability to reduce air pollution by almost 2.6 lakh metric tonnes per year. This is going to be the game-changer as far as reducing air pollution is concerned,” Bhide added.

On the issue of cutting over 2,000 trees for the Metro depot in Aarey, which received over 82,000 objections from citizens, Bhide said there was no alternative location where the depot could come up.

“People think we are cruel-hearted, but there is no option. A car depot can’t be isolated. It has to be connected to the corridor. Building a car depot in Aarey is a technical decision and no non-technical person can decide where it has to be built,” she said.

The official further explained that the car shed could not be set up at Kanjurmarg, as suggested by Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray and others, because the land was stuck in litigation since 1996.

In response to allegations of commercial exploitation of forest land, Bhide clarified that MMRC has no plans of using Aarey land for any commercial project and citizens should not believe anyone who says otherwise.

As of today, 59 percent of tunnel work for the Metro-3 corridor is complete and work on all 26 underground stations is underway.

The first phase of the project between Aarey and Bandra is likely to be ready by December 2021 and the entire corridor is expected to be ready by June 2022.

#Metro3 line will now be called ” Aqua line” How will the coaches look, what will they be equipped with, click below to know all this and more #MakingMumbaiAwesome #MumbaiUnderground @MahaDGIPR @CMOMaharashtra pic.twitter.com/4xCsEM0Oyw

— MumbaiMetro3 (@MumbaiMetro3) August 16, 2019