Within hours of my last blog 'Update on Metro' I am shocked to read the news that Maharashtra State Government is all set to approve proposal for Vanaz - Ramwadi elevated corridor for Metro.
It appears that our campaign for better Metro has fallen to deaf ears and also the decision makers for some reasons are determined to permenantly damage visual character of Pune. May be some of them are Pune haters who do not want Pune to compete with other cities and emerge as good city to live in so that some other cities gain upper hand and prosper at cost of Pune.
As the fear comes true - additional FSI on Metro corridor is also approved as per the news. Our Commissioner and Hon. Guardian Minister categorically ruled out additional FSI option for finance in our meetings and assured that it will not be done. But the reality appears otherwise.
It is known now that DMRC is pushing for similar overhead Metro in other tier 2 cities also. This is surely very disturbing and detrimental to development of these cities. Learning from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore experience, elevated metro should be banned permanently. Metro should be either on grade or underground.
Pune Technical Coalition must now explore how can we save Pune from this menace of Elevated Metro.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Update on Metro
Since my blog ‘Bury the Metro’ a lot has happened..
All the associations and institutions related to architecture, building construction, urban design and town planning along with Janwani came together with motive of getting best possible metro network for Pune. A study of small patch carried out by students of PVP College of Architecture came handy. So did a study made by Ar. Nitin Killawala and Ar. Kuldipsingh on Mumbai and Delhi Metro systems.
Pune chapter of IUDI complied the presentation with help of other institutions. We made presentation to - ‘Peoples’ representatives – Mohansingh Rajpal (Mayor of Pune), Shri. Ajit Pawar (Guardian Minister), Shri. Suresh Kalmadi, Mrs. Supriya Sule, Shri. Prakash Javdekar (All MPs from Pune), Mrs. Vandana Chavan (MLC), Shri. Arvind Shinde (Chairman, Standing committee, PMC), Shri. Nilesh Nikam (Corporator and House leader, PMC), Shri. Shyam Deshpande (Corporator, PMC), etc.
We also made presentation to Shri. Zagade (Commissioner, PMC) Shri. Bonala (Traffic planner, PMC), etc. also to various NGOs working for better Pune.
Response was not negative except from PMC officials who had reservations on the issue and they appeared keen on putting it elevated. I do not blame them as they are just employees of Pune and in all probabilities Pune is neither their home town nor they are looking forward to make it their home town. Why they should be bothered?
Going though the Detailed project report (DPR) submitted by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) I found it to be mere cut and paste job. Not much study specific to Pune has gone into it. It does not compare options.
Apparently, it is made with the following presumptions. –
Pune cannot afford much. So what is the cheapest option – On grade metro. That is not feasible. What is next cheapest – Elevated? This is feasible, GO FOR IT.
Once you accept this – you have to follow road network. That is further restricted to roads more than 30 meters wide. So your network is easily defined. It may not address the origin destination demand greatly but it may not fully ignore it also. So put it there. Don’t look at other aspects like existing transport network. Anyhow, it does not work. So why bother? And how about visual character of the city and its image?..... What is it?
Any report can be defended and made convenient if you shut yourself of ground realities.
Misnomer – We cannot put it underground because we have rock below! Any tunnel engineer will tell you that Pune has one of the best subsoil strata for underground metro. It will be cheaper in Pune to build it underground because of hard rock than in Delhi which has alluvial soil.
DPR says the elevated station will have footprint of 30 meters X 180 meters but according to our PMC officers in reality it will be much less. I pity such a statement. Simple calculation for width –
Width of Metro compartment 2.9 meters – two tracks make it 5.8 meters.
You need to leave at least 0.7 meters between them makes it 6.5 meters,
add platforms on both sides – at least 4.5 meters clear width + structural members 0.75 meters wide supporting the roof, so add 10.5 meters – 17 meters,
add staircases of minimum clear width of 2.5 meters + structure 0.75 meters, two for each platform, so add 6.5 meters – 23.5 meters.
If the staircase is dog legged (Which is most likely as you need to climb to 10~11 meters height from road – i.e. 70+ steps) you need to add another 6.5 meters to make total minimum width 30 meters.
This is minimum one width needs.
You also need to accommodate elevator for invalids and senior citizen with lobby, concourses (paid and unpaid), ticket office with que area, security check area, electrical equipment rooms, etc. Even most brilliant designer cannot reduce more than a meter or so from above width. Why they want to fool themselves (and us) with such impractical assumption?
Why Pune should accept cheap option? It is already a rich city. It is highest contributor to state exchequer. It can afford to redo its footpaths, roads and medians every alternate year. It can afford to put in place expensive flyovers that are redundant even before they get complete. It can afford to replace PMPML bus shelters with fancier ones every two years, It can afford to replace street light posts with fancy and expensive designs whenever it wants. Why one should think Pune cannot afford Metro? It can certainly afford metro that also underground metro much better designed and built than ‘Delhi Metro’. After all in next 10 years Pune is going to be the premier Global Indian City ahead of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluroo. If Pune IPL team gets sold for 1700 crores what money shortage one is talking about?
Our commissioner and the guardian minister categorically told us that the proposal to allot 4 FSI in the corridor 500 meters on both sides of Metro and 200 meters on both sides of BRTS is permanently discarded. However, we did not find any documentary evidence to substantiate their verbal assurance.
Similarly, they had no answer why this proposal is not integrated with Development plan for Pune City. I believe, we must publish this proposal under section 37 of MRTP act and call for suggestions and objections from citizen before we proceed on the proposal.
We never wanted the metro yesterday, for that matter even today. DPR states that optimum ridership does not exist today and on some of the proposed routes the same will not be close to capacity thirty years hence. Good planning and execution of other modes of transport can take care of our needs for next few years. We surely need Metro for future. We need it for our children and grand children. So why hurry? We still have time to plan it properly and build it well and hand it over to our next generation with pride.
All the associations and institutions related to architecture, building construction, urban design and town planning along with Janwani came together with motive of getting best possible metro network for Pune. A study of small patch carried out by students of PVP College of Architecture came handy. So did a study made by Ar. Nitin Killawala and Ar. Kuldipsingh on Mumbai and Delhi Metro systems.
Pune chapter of IUDI complied the presentation with help of other institutions. We made presentation to - ‘Peoples’ representatives – Mohansingh Rajpal (Mayor of Pune), Shri. Ajit Pawar (Guardian Minister), Shri. Suresh Kalmadi, Mrs. Supriya Sule, Shri. Prakash Javdekar (All MPs from Pune), Mrs. Vandana Chavan (MLC), Shri. Arvind Shinde (Chairman, Standing committee, PMC), Shri. Nilesh Nikam (Corporator and House leader, PMC), Shri. Shyam Deshpande (Corporator, PMC), etc.
We also made presentation to Shri. Zagade (Commissioner, PMC) Shri. Bonala (Traffic planner, PMC), etc. also to various NGOs working for better Pune.
Response was not negative except from PMC officials who had reservations on the issue and they appeared keen on putting it elevated. I do not blame them as they are just employees of Pune and in all probabilities Pune is neither their home town nor they are looking forward to make it their home town. Why they should be bothered?
Going though the Detailed project report (DPR) submitted by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) I found it to be mere cut and paste job. Not much study specific to Pune has gone into it. It does not compare options.
Apparently, it is made with the following presumptions. –
Pune cannot afford much. So what is the cheapest option – On grade metro. That is not feasible. What is next cheapest – Elevated? This is feasible, GO FOR IT.
Once you accept this – you have to follow road network. That is further restricted to roads more than 30 meters wide. So your network is easily defined. It may not address the origin destination demand greatly but it may not fully ignore it also. So put it there. Don’t look at other aspects like existing transport network. Anyhow, it does not work. So why bother? And how about visual character of the city and its image?..... What is it?
Any report can be defended and made convenient if you shut yourself of ground realities.
Misnomer – We cannot put it underground because we have rock below! Any tunnel engineer will tell you that Pune has one of the best subsoil strata for underground metro. It will be cheaper in Pune to build it underground because of hard rock than in Delhi which has alluvial soil.
DPR says the elevated station will have footprint of 30 meters X 180 meters but according to our PMC officers in reality it will be much less. I pity such a statement. Simple calculation for width –
Width of Metro compartment 2.9 meters – two tracks make it 5.8 meters.
You need to leave at least 0.7 meters between them makes it 6.5 meters,
add platforms on both sides – at least 4.5 meters clear width + structural members 0.75 meters wide supporting the roof, so add 10.5 meters – 17 meters,
add staircases of minimum clear width of 2.5 meters + structure 0.75 meters, two for each platform, so add 6.5 meters – 23.5 meters.
If the staircase is dog legged (Which is most likely as you need to climb to 10~11 meters height from road – i.e. 70+ steps) you need to add another 6.5 meters to make total minimum width 30 meters.
This is minimum one width needs.
You also need to accommodate elevator for invalids and senior citizen with lobby, concourses (paid and unpaid), ticket office with que area, security check area, electrical equipment rooms, etc. Even most brilliant designer cannot reduce more than a meter or so from above width. Why they want to fool themselves (and us) with such impractical assumption?
Why Pune should accept cheap option? It is already a rich city. It is highest contributor to state exchequer. It can afford to redo its footpaths, roads and medians every alternate year. It can afford to put in place expensive flyovers that are redundant even before they get complete. It can afford to replace PMPML bus shelters with fancier ones every two years, It can afford to replace street light posts with fancy and expensive designs whenever it wants. Why one should think Pune cannot afford Metro? It can certainly afford metro that also underground metro much better designed and built than ‘Delhi Metro’. After all in next 10 years Pune is going to be the premier Global Indian City ahead of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluroo. If Pune IPL team gets sold for 1700 crores what money shortage one is talking about?
Our commissioner and the guardian minister categorically told us that the proposal to allot 4 FSI in the corridor 500 meters on both sides of Metro and 200 meters on both sides of BRTS is permanently discarded. However, we did not find any documentary evidence to substantiate their verbal assurance.
Similarly, they had no answer why this proposal is not integrated with Development plan for Pune City. I believe, we must publish this proposal under section 37 of MRTP act and call for suggestions and objections from citizen before we proceed on the proposal.
We never wanted the metro yesterday, for that matter even today. DPR states that optimum ridership does not exist today and on some of the proposed routes the same will not be close to capacity thirty years hence. Good planning and execution of other modes of transport can take care of our needs for next few years. We surely need Metro for future. We need it for our children and grand children. So why hurry? We still have time to plan it properly and build it well and hand it over to our next generation with pride.
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