[sustran] Mumbai Metro Proposal

[Kisan Mehta]

Dear Colleagues,

Mumbai (area 434 sq km and population 11.91 million-Census of India 2001) has highly overstrained transport facilities. Sealocked 
on three sides, Mumbai presents a unique geographical entity with average population density of 27,000 persons per sq km, unheard 
of anywhere elsein the world. 

Though suburban railway services started in the the Nineteenthirties and road transport are publicly owned, there has been little development on the demand management pricniple.  Trains running  at about five timesand buses at three times the normal carrying capacity look fater 88% of roral journeys. Personal cars receive 
higher priotity causing serious bottelnecks for public transport .      
With average 20 and 10 residents dieing daily on the railway 
tracks and roads, Mumbai ranks amongst human centres having 
high accident rate in the world.  The World Bank report says that pedestrians form 95% of accidents on Mumbai roads.  Paradoxically the Bank loan has 85% for construction of highways while suburban railways 43%. The amount loaned to public road services forms 
2.5% of the total  project cost.  

Mumbai does not have metro railway service. The government 
owned Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has put up a proposal for Mumbai Metro comprising of  32.5 lm of underground and 114 km length of elevated railway 
facility to be completed in stages by early twenties. 

You are closely associatred with public transport and especially 
in metro services as well as in urban planning and development. 
We are trying to work out a citizen susbtainable alternative that 
can meet citizen expectations and is affordable to the less 
fortunate of our citizens.   We appeal to you to take interest in 
the umbai Metro proposals and make valuable suggestions so 
that Mumbai has the most preferred system.   We hope to get complete info from the authorites in a couple of days which we 
can share with those of you interested in the proposal.   Best wishes.

Kisan Mehta
Save Bombay Committee
620 Jame Jamshed Road, Dadar East,
Mumbai 400014 
Tel: 00 91 22 2414 9688       
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20040210/1c5e4617/attachment.html