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Std Metro is every planner says. But, what we need is a sustainable transport. A Metro system although highly attractive and fast is not sustainable in terms of the investment it calls.

Most of the cities are going to BRT since it is sustainable. There are many critics about BRT , and many critics on the Monorail, many on the light rail (lot many cities have dismantled it and are going to BRT instead of LRT (since BRT is lot faster and easier to maintain and can be self feeder).

A city in Canada ( I think Ottawa) which built a Metro for the Olympics become bankrupt since people were not using it after the Olympics and it proved costly to the Government.

We see lot of BMTC Vajras and Vayu Vajras running empty burning 1 litrle of diesel every 1.5 km with 2 or 3 passengers in it due to routing problem of BMTC. We cannot afford to have a Metro running like that because of the routing problems.

BRT is fastest,cheapest to implement and maintain. It can be self feeder to itself. People need not change modes of transport. Problem is it depends too much on how organized the implementation is. BRT buses has to wait in signals.

LRT comes second since it runs at grade.  This also depends lot on how organized the implementation is since people have to cross the roads to access LRT stations. LRTs too have to wait in signals. Carrying capacity of one train of LRT can be higher than that of one BRT bus - but trailer BRT buses too has got excellent carrying capacity.

Problem with both these technologies is it needs road space equivalent to 2 buses / Train + 3-5et as buffer. Space is more needed near BRT or LRT stations.

Monorails are having shortest turning radius, suits very well for narrower roads. It runs on rubber tyres, so less wear and tear. Have smaller foot print since the piers are smaller since monorails are lighter than their counterparts metro.  There are monorails built to run on solar energy as well.  This is more expensive in terms of investment compared to BRT or LRT, but faster since it runs on rubber track. Does not depend on the traffic signals since it runs elevated. Has a carrying capacity raning from 5,000 - 30,000 PHPDT.

Metros elevated are expensive than Mono to implement since the Piers needs to be wider and larger in area. Needs straight lines preferrably since the turning radius is larger which needs land acquisitions thereby increasing the cost. We know the problems in Bangalore for land acquisition like the CMH Road where the shop keepers were telling 'Discard Metro and Implement Mono' since they were at the receiving end. There is a case filed against the namma metro project itself.

Underground Metro is the most expensive and highly time consuming because of the viaduct construction. People say why elevated Metro, it blocks the vision of the sky and damages the city look. But, at the cost of 1 km of underground Metro, 3-4 kms of elevated Metro can be constructed.

I would suggest Sustainable Transport is what we need. Wherever road width permits, BRT is a good candidate because of its nature of self feeding plus quick implementation. As Naveen suggested many routes to BMTC which can be quickly implemented within a year, but, not moving forward with our planners. 

BRT not possible? Elevated Metro or Mono depending upon the PHPDT volumes. No biasing towards any technology please. Underground Metro only at the busiest places.

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Vasanth, I am not saying width of footpath. Maybe 10 ft or more which is a rather wide footpath. Just seeing how to reuse that space better. We all complain about lack of pedestrian facilites/facilites for bicyclists. In that context, your statement "we rarely see cyclists .." is really retrograde and it is precisely the attitude we are trying to fight against. Its easy to design it such a way that motorised vehicles cannot use it. We can always have a sharp elevation from the road of 2 ft or so and bars at entry/exit points. At all turns there will be roads, so I dont understand the access problem. idontspam May not be engineering talk, but we must use numbers to discuss, otherwise we are just talking in the air. I am going to copy paste another thread which I posted somewhere else - As per your mail, the Delhi Phase I cost 10,500 crores. But the point is phase I by itself is very insufficient, as the commuters and the fellow bloggers itself have commented. Hence we have a phase 2. From the DMRC site itself, it says that for a population of 16 million, we need a Metro of at least 300 km length to have sufficient reach and service across the city. That would roughly translate to 2km per lakh or 20 km per million population. Phase 1 is 65km (ph2 is 120km). At that, the cost per km is around 10500/65 is Rs 161 crores/km on an average. The aggregate population of Indian cities having a population of 2 million or more is around 100 million. To service them with the same conviniences that Delhi would have, would need around 100 x 20 = 2000 km of Metro. At the above average cost, that would translate to 2000 x 161 = Rs 3,22,000 crores or $ 80 billion ! Does India have that kind of money ? Answer is NO. Not when 25% of the population does not have decent food or education. Yes of course I would like to have a METRO. But with it I would like my fellow countryment to have it too, not at their cost. Yes there are hidden benefits to a METRO, but still this is toooo expensive. Suhas

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Seeing that this didn't turn into engineering chat, I return to and argue another point. Lets borrow from the BMTC related surveys (M N Srihari's 'paper') and polls (right here, from Vasanth) that tell us that people want two things first

- reliability, as in predictablity if time. Point A to Point B in a given range of time. Say, Indiranagar to Madivala in 20-30 minutes, that type of range.

- coverage. How far is the nearest point of commute, and can I easily walk or drive up to it?

- comfort, speed etc come a bit later, and enter the debate indirectly, at least for the majority

Suhas, with these two being most important, I will buy your argument that Metro B (whatever it may be - elevated LRT, Railway's DEMU with bird cage like fences, Dedicated bus lanes on elevated roads - design your cost and space affective technology here) would be better option that 120 Cr/km Metro because you want "coverage" over speed.

These talks always tilts in favor of Metro due to speed. Speed is about how fast multiplied by how many. You can do with a high capacity, high speed mode for high density corridors. If the Metro corridors are not dense, you can make them high density by two means:

1) Selectively raise FAR around the Metro corridor

2) Design each Metro station as a hub for catchment area

Which of the two is easier for government to do? Yes, #1, and they have already done it! (Recently raised FAR around Metro corridor to 4)! However, the same high FAR thing is now hurting because its become harder to acquire land near the stations for the purpose of building them up as local transportation hubs (source: a recent chat with those in the know).

One metro station every 1 km may never happen, it probably doesn't deserver to as well. But transportation design for catchment areas for Metro needs to happen, and happen fast.

Its not good to hear that BMTC and BMRC are arguing over who should pay for and maintain (as in acquire) areas for buses to pick up passengers near the station. detailed plans for stations are not public (at least I haven't seen the plans, I am talking the full station area, not just the show peice building, which really doesn't matter). Catchment area, and station sorrounding area design will make or break the Metro.

Now, about catchment, I am with asj's philosophy here. Existing bus system, with some re-tuning to add local shuttles to extend the reach to deeper residential areas can do it. I would like us to exhaust that option before going into Monorail or Skybus or whatever.

But its sad to see no talk happening in public media and forums on this topic. Metro is going to be like BIAL, we will likely be disappointed because we are ot paying attention to details and scrutiny right now.

Sorry for the Metro heavy talk - will probably copy-paste it into a new Metro only thread.

[Suhas - did you read the PM?]

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wish digging up - place - cover was that easy task..itz very evident from the magic underpasses that we wanted to put in place..remember it was a 3-5 mts width

many things to be taken care of - 

high cost

soil quality

water table

existing utility lines etc

LRT  like the green line in Boston run at different grades, goes undergorund at Boston college and when its at park street..red line(metro) criss corsses below it..this was layed in the early 19th century!

The best advantage for going underground is, as you mention, nothing is disturbed on top..and speed is not hindered..in that case its more economical for planning a metro rather than a LRT underground!

 

LRT at grade is a good idea for Bangalore but needs tremendous dicipline from road users (vehicles/pedestrians)..we lack here and I dont see we improving anywhere in the near future..

Metro is the only way to go!

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was waiting for folks like you to have an engineering talk on this. I will be reading this up too. Lets share our notes via a wikipedia like article. will mail you the details.

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