Mumbai's Pride!

 

All the various setbacks have finally been put aside and today we welcome the country’s first monorail in Mumbai- the city of dreams.  And yet another dream has been successfully accomplished!

It was inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan last afternoon and is said to be open to the public between 7am and 3pm today.

It is said to take off the burden the people face every single day with the lack of access to public transport with the rate of the increasing population growth in the city.

It is 20km long and approximately Rs 3,000 crore which runs on air and corners on rails. Riding six and a half metres above the road on a 800mm-wide cement rail it doesn’t seem to interfere with anyone. The monorail will have a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph), an average speed of 65 kilometres per hour (40 mph) and the overall speed including dwell time at stations would be around 31 kilometres per hour (19 mph)

The Line 1 which opened today is about is 8.93 km long. It runs between Wadala and Chembur in the eastern fringes of Mumbai.The monorail produces between 65 – 85 decibels of noise, significantly lower than the 95 decibel noise level of a BEST Bus.

The monorail will be linked to major local train stations. So the station at Chembur is connected with a skywalk to the monorail station near it.

In the beginning, the monorail will run every 15 minutes between 7 am and 3 pm and once the entire project is complete, it will be 20 km long and connect Jacob Circle in south Mumbai to Chembur in eastern Mumbai to connect the public to one of the most busiest areas in the city.

It is the most comfortable mode of travel as all coaches of the monorail trains are air-conditioned with each train carrying 560 passengers.

It is quite economical and therefore all strata of society will be able to travel in them. The tickets are priced between Rs. 5 and Rs. 11 with six stations on the way.

 

The good part is that there will be no monthly passes like the ones on the local train as it will be replaced with a system of smart cards. This way there would be no need for ticket checkers and less hassle for the people who use the train too.

On the contrary , it is said to not have proper networking of the routes and even getting to the starting point of the line 1 phase it is quite far away from the station so it causes quite a lot of inconvenience for people travelling to further distances. Another drawback is that it cannot accommodate even quarter the amount of people a suburban train can.

But it is still too early to judge the capabilities of the train.

It has its pros and cons but the Mumbaikars seem to be all excited and proud for it’s city has yet again done something magnificent for them.