Towards a clutter-free City Railway Station

Towards a clutter-free City Railway Station
A plan is in the works for a third entry to the Bangalore City Railway Station that would allow easier access for passengers. The Okalipuram Road side entry is also being modified with a seamless network of roads.

The Times of India


Bangalore: The South Western Railway is working on a proposal to have a third entry to the Bangalore City Railway station, on the Magadi Road side, to ease congestion in and around the station and to smoothen the daily flow of over 1.80 lakh passengers. This will be in addition to the main entry from the Kempe Gowda bus stand side (Majestic) and the second entry from Okalipuram side.
The third entry will come up adjacent to the Bangalore Metro Rail station on Magadi Road and will be integrated into it. This will be part of the World Class station project identified by the ministry of railways.
The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike will hand over to the Railways about 6,000 sq mts of land for the project, South Western Railway divisional railway manager (DRM) Mahesh Mangal told The Times of India. A concourse, a first floor station building, and a road-over bridge connecting all the 10 platforms will be constructed as part of the Rs 10-crore project.
There is also adequate space for a multilevel car park, which is part of the project. The Railways are appointing a consultant to prepare the plan for making Bangalore City Railway station a world class station. This will include better designed station structure, escalators, food courts, among other things.
SECOND ENTRY
Mangal said a proposal to build a seamless multi-level road network into the second entry of the Bangalore City railway station (Okalipuram Road entry) is in its final stages of clearance by the state government.
The Rs 30-crore proposal made by the BMP envisages a ramp entry into the station building area from the Majestic side, an elevated road entry from the Malleswaram side, another elevated link from the Rajajinagar side, a walkway for commuters coming by bus, and a similar exit plan for arriving passengers.
The proposal has received an inprinciple approval from the Railways after high-level meetings between the Railways, the state government and the BMP, the DRM said.
The proposal for improving the facilities on the second entry has a plan for a multilevel parking, apart from an underground tunnel on Okalipuram Road going under the tracks. The second entry currently serves platform number 7, 8, 9 and 10.
The design for the multi-level road network has been developed by Bangalore -based Manasa Consultants on behalf of the BMP. Some railway buildings, mostly houses, may have to go for realisation of this plan, and the railways have agreed to it.
Explaining the features of the project, Mangal said this would help improve the existing road network on the Okalipuram side, where there are traffic jams all the time. Railways is also allowing the BMP to put up the 150 metres tunnel for road traffic under the tracks. The project may take two to three years to be completed after the state government gives its final nod.
Meanwhile, the railways are also constructing a station building for the second entry with concourse area with booking counters and the works. The station building will be on the first floor and will be connected to all platforms through a road-over-bridge. The railways will spend about Rs 8.50 crore for the construction, which is awaiting Railway Board approval. The station building may take about two years to be ready, South Western Railway, Bangalore, senior divisional engineer Amith Garg added.
LIFTS FOR ALL PLATFORMS
The South Western Railway will build high capacity elevators with minimum carrying facility of 20 passengers at any given point of time, for all platforms of the Bangalore City station at a cost of a little over Rs 1 crore. Mahesh Mangal said that the lifts will be ready by end-2007.
In the first phase, two lifts will be installed immediately on platform number 1 and 8, and these will be ready by March 2007. The other lifts will be installed subsequently.
The structures for installing the lifts are already in place and no digging is necessary. “It is only lift installation, which takes three months. Work has already been sanctioned. Lifts on all platforms except number 4 will be installed and functional adjacent to the subway. Platform number 4 does not have adequate space for a lift.