A Train Runs Through It

THERE ARE CERTAIN things you just cannot do on a Mumbai local train during the morning rush hour. Opening a newspaper for one is frowned upon, if not an altogether impossible task. A tabloid may be permitted, so long as you fold it at least once across and do not let it come in anyone’s way. A broadsheet is a strict no-no, unless you can fold it many times over into a tiny handkerchief-sized square that fits in your palm.

It is around 9.30 in the morning today, a period that would qualify as peak rush hours in the city, and a middle-aged man has flagrantly flung open a broadsheet across its full breadth. He reads it devotedly from the first to the last page, only occasionally stopping to turn and steady its pages, and his many possessions— two bags for a laptop and a tiffin, a mobile, and a spectacle case— lie spread out across the seat next to him.

Such a sight may seem unreal. But it is one that is true today. The man is travelling in the latest addition to the city’s Metro network—Aqua Line or Line 3—which connects some of the busi­est office locations in the western suburbs of the city, and except for him and a few others spread across the coaches, the Metro rattles southward almost empty.

The first day of this line attracted a footfall of around 18,000 passengers, a paltry number for such a crowded city, but the Metro officials blamed this on the late opening that day—the first train became operational only after 11AM—and the lack of awareness. The following day, it opened at 6.30AM, but on the evidence of this morning, it was still running fairly empty. Later in the night, when the officials revealed the total number of passengers who had taken the new line between 6.30AM to 9PM, it had gone up only marginally from the previous day. A little over 20,000 pas­sengers had taken the line, way below the projected ridership of 4 lakh passengers per day that the authorities had projected for this phase of the line. “You will have to give it a little more time,” says Vivek Pai, a Mumbai-based transport analyst whose firm, Sustainancy Consultants, provides consulting services for environment, urban and transport planning. “This is going to be a very important Metro line, which is going to connect some of busiest localities in the city.”

The Metro’s Line 3, the first phase of which was opened to the public on October 7, has had a troubled birthing. Its groundbreak­ing ceremony was first held all the way back in 2014, but it got delayed several times. One of the most notable causes over the delay was the political storm that brew over the decision to locate the Metro car shed in the green belt of Aarey Colony. This became a focal point in the tussle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the undivided Shiv Sena, and the BJP government and environmentalists, with the matter going all the way to the Supreme Court, which eventually gave the nod for the construc­tion within Aarey Colony.

The line currently connects the area of Goregaon in the western suburbs to the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), touching several important and busy locations, such as the business dis­trict of SEEPZ, the two airport terminals, and multiple locations along the way. When it will be opened entirely, expected to be ready by May next year, the entire 33.3km long line will extend farther south towards some of the busiest locations in the city, from Dadar and Worli, to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), Churchgate, and all the way to Cuffe Parade. “The tagline of this Metro line is ‘connecting the unconnected’. And this is true it con­nects many regions which are currently not very well connected to the suburban [local train] system. But one of the reasons why this line is going to be very important is that is also quite parallel to the suburban [local train] system,” says Paresh Rawal, a public policy analyst who specialises in urban transport and mobility.

“So, in all, there will be around 14 Metro lines, all of which will be interlinked and complementing one another. And among these 14 lines, this Line 3 is going to be their spine.”

AS THE METRO train hurtles on, pulling away from Aarey- JVLR station, bringing the controversial Metro shed into view, the train plunges abruptly into darkness, under the city’s busy roads. Apart from the middle-aged man with the newspa­per in the coach, there only 10 more individuals, half of who are Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) employees. A woman who identifies herself as Priya is among the individu­als. A resident of Jogeshwari in the western suburbs, the journey to her office in BKC involves a crowded train journey and rick­shaw rides to and from the railway station, all of which take her about an hour-and-a-half on a good day. “I’ve been waiting for this Metro to start ever since it was announced,” she says. “If it works the way they say it will, I should be able to reach office in less than an hour. And then there is the whole comfort factor, which you will never get in a train.”

The train hurtles through quite emptily from one station to the next. It frequently overshoots itself when it arrives at a station, requiring it to realign itself with the platform’s doors, and occasionally it halts for longer than required—the train in fact starts with a delay of nearly 15 minutes. Very few get on at the stations. And those that do seem to be here for joyrides or on recces to anal­yse how suitable the line is for them. When the Metro train pulls into Ma­rol station—which authorities have claimed will become a focal point since it is interlinked with Line 1 that connects the western suburbs to Ghatkopar in the east—there are not more than a handful of individuals who board it. Among them is a middle-aged man who works as an accountant in BKC. “I’m here on a trial to check out how reliable the Metro is,” he says. A resident of a distant corner of Marol, his usual travel route is a punishing journey that involves bus rides and a train journey that can sometimes stretch on to nearly two hours. “But the thing with trains are they may be uncomfortable, but they are always reliable. The Metro looks good, but I am here to see if it can be as reliable as a train,” he goes on.

THE EXISTING METRO lines however have not seen the kind of daily ridership that was expected. According to reports, Lines 2A and 7, which were opened in their entirety in January last, carries around just 40 per cent of the passengers initially anticipated. One of the big reasons for this, transport experts say, is because planning authorities often inflate the num­bers of expected ridership to get project approval. “If you look at the Central government’s guidelines for Metros, they clearly state that if other [public] modes of transport aren’t serving the purpose, and if the number of commuters is going to be a high number, only then can Metros be considered,” Rawal says. The new line is projected to get a daily ridership of 4 lakh for the current phase, and around 14 lakh when it is fully opened next year. These numbers, according to experts, are probably inflated, and the new line, however successful it proves to be, is unlikely to see such high usage.

The other reason the earlier lines see less-than-expected rid­ership is also the lack of last-mile connectivity. Passengers often exit from Metro stations to locations on busy roads with few or no dedicated bus and auto or taxi stands. This is a problem with the latest line too. “First and last-mile connectivity is going to be crucial. Because right now, with the other lines, this is a big issue. You have people who live just two kilometres or so from a Metro station. But the money you spend, and often the time you spend, to get to the station is more than what you spend once you get on to the Metro,” Pai says.

Many believe that this new line, once it becomes fully operational, will be able to entice many Mum­baikars away from private cars and taxis, and even some from the crowded local train networks. “For that, we will need to ensure a few things happen,” Rawal says. “First­ly, the frequency of the Metro trains will have to be high and remain on time. One of the reasons why people take local trains is because it is pre­dictable. When you are on it, you can give an approximate time of where you will be by a certain hour. The second is the capacity will have to be augmented, from the six or so coaches they are doing now to more.”

On the way back on the new line from BKC, quite late in the afternoon, a young woman in her 20s boards a coach. “Right now, because of the way I travel, I hardly even get enough sleep,” she says. Like many who live in far-flung regions, this woman who lives in Dahisar on the far northern end of the city, undertakes a punishing journey daily to reach her destination on time. She leaves her house, she says, about 5.30 every morning so she can catch a train from Dahisar to Bandra, from which she will then hop on to a bus or an autorickshaw to reach her college in Kurla.

“Look, I have figured it out,” she says, as she unlocks her phone to show an image of the various Metro lines currently operational. She points to the many colourful lines, pinches on the names of some stations, zooms into others, as she charts the journey she will take across the many interconnected lines.

“Maybe, I can even sleep in a little more,” she says, as the near-empty train rattles on.

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