Railing against the metro

Railing against the metro
The Hindu

Can you imagine anyone starting from home, briefcase in hand, and, midstream in the metro, deciding to travel to Mumbai?

There is a tedious fulfilling of doomsday prophecies about infrastructure projects in Bangalore. The metro debate, which the people who run things want to be closed even before it starts, has just entered that inevitable phase of another old controversy: what gauge should it be?

You would think the standard one, wouldn't you? For obvious reasons, stupid, because the stuff is readily available, tried and tested. Oh, no, the railways won't allow it, apparently. The railway people, whoever they may be, carried out a similar campaign while deciding parameters for the fancy Delhi Metro. The railway people wanted broad gauge, apparently, because they argued that it would connect to the national railway grid.

So, if you will pardon my incredulousness, you should conceive of a commuter who starts out from home with a briefcase in the morning and, midstream in the metro, decides to travel to Mumbai. You can imagine where this argument could go. But, there are apparently all kinds of good reasons for the broad gauge too and so the gauge for the Delhi Metro is the railway broad gauge, five-foot-something, while the standard metro would have been four-foot-something.

Now, they want the same broad gauge for Bangalore. We want a mass rapid transit system to take us to work and back, to help us cover city distances because we are fed up with traffic jams and pollution. We don't want a track that will lead us to Chennai or Ahmedabad, we are willing to take a cab or auto to the railway station when we want to travel out of town. Who's listening? If there are good reasons, why don't you tell us?

Too much secrecy


The metro, one suspects, is a good plot for some dodgy things. There is too much secrecy. We have so far not found out what the exact route plan is. We don't know how much of the thing is on surface and how much underground. We don't know who in government, here and at the Centre, wants the metro, the broad gauge, and whatever other massive decisions are being taken. We don't know why they want these things, if they want it. If they are going to spend the promised Rs. 6500 crores of our money, dig up our already messed up roads, break buildings and generally commit us all to the ugly life for the next 10 years, they better level with us. We won't ask what's in it for you, if you will tell us exactly what's in it for us.

If you have not been clued into the debate - Metro vs Monorail - let me help you tune in. The metro rail will take, we don't really know how many, but a promised five years for the first phase. The Delhi Metro, first phase of 64 km, has so far cost over Rs.12,000 crores. The population of Delhi, or really the National Capital Region, is 19 million and the Metro there ferries about 1.3 lakh passengers every day. You can work out the percentages, but the point is that it is no big deal.

Bangalore's population is 6.2 million. It is a city growing all around, just like Delhi, and any rail track will be challenged on coverage. The planned metro for Bangalore is going to cover 36 km. The roads of the city, inadequate as they may seem, cover 4,600 km. You will need transport to get to the metro, no kidding. The metro is a big boy, needs a lot of space, and there are disturbing plans to cut through some of the busiest commercial areas of Bangalore, dig up large chunks of Cubbon Park and inflict massive traffic jams during construction. All this to carry, going by Delhi percentages, some 40,000 commuters?

The cost


The monorail solution, being offered by Rehan Khan and company of Metrail India, at the show window looks a better option. First the cost: the metro will cost us about Rs.200 crores per km; monorail will be around Rs.45 crores per km. If you don't believe the figures, it doesn't really matter, because we are not going to spend that money. The monorail guys are saying they will put in all the investment themselves, seek nothing in grants or guarantees from the government here or at the Centre. They will build it themselves, operate it for 30 years and hand it over to the government. Now, the features:

Monorail will run on a hybrid energy solution, partly solar-powered and partly by natural gas and simple batteries. That means no pollution and, even more crucially, no demand from the overburdened grid. If the power cuts disturb your television viewing habits, you should use your imagination for what they could do for a mass rapid transit system. The monorail has apparently been in use for over 100 years all over the world, without a single fatality. It is safe. The monorail is light, can turn on a radius of 20 metres (the metro needs 200 metres), can be constructed in 18 months from plan approval to commissioning. Its columns will occupy one square metre of median space every 30 metres. No dig ups, diversions and jams. No properties will be acquired, no demolitions, no litigations, they promise. It will cover 90 km of the city in its first phase and, being flexible, can go where it is really needed.

"Delhi's Sheila Dixit herself has said monorail is the future and a better option," argues Rehan Khan. The Delhi Chief Minister, credited with cleaning up the capital, has in fact given approval in principle for monorail transport in her city. Now there are rumours that Hyderabad, growing smarter by the year, is opting for a hybrid monorail solution. If somebody wants to risk investment, build a city rail system that is favoured by Mahathir Mohammed and the Japanese, hand it over to the city, what's coming in the way? Honestly, we don't know. If there is a catch, the metro people should tell us.