Work on station's new 10-metre-wide foot bridge picks up pace, could be opened by December first week
The new FOB is located at the Churchgate-end of Bandra station
With a major portion of the work on Bandra station's new 10-metre-wide mega footbridge at the Churchgate-end speed-completed over the last two nights, the new bridge is expected to be ready in two months and should be open to the public by December.
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The Western Railway (WR) has also decided to not wait for the BMC skywalk to reopen and has come up with an alternative staircase landing so that the foot over bridge (FOB) can be ready without further delay.
The initial plan was to link the bridge with the skywalk. But the fate of the skywalk remains undecided with the Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute (VJTI), which has been roped in for expert advice on its stability and repairs. The skywalk is just nine years old and has been declared dangerous by the BMC.
Confirming the development, WR's chief public relations officer Ravinder Bhakar said, "We have decided to move ahead and will not wait or depend on the opening of the skywalk. We will give a staircase landing to the new bridge so that the pressure on the station is eased."
After the BMC abruptly shut down the skywalk on June 20 this year, the WR's carefully-curated R8-crore plan had been in limbo as the new wide railway bridge was supposed to connect to the skywalk. But BMC officials, without giving notice, shut the skywalk, saying that its support structures were found to be weak.
After studying the crowd's movement patterns and congestion, the WR had nipped the problem in the bud for east-west connectivity by planning one of the widest FOBs at the station. mid-day has been following up the issue.
The new FOB at the Churchgate-end of Bandra station nudges the now closed skywalk
"The new 10-metre-wide and 102-metre-long footbridge that is being built at the Churchgate-end of the station at a cost of about R8 crore was to be linked to the skywalk. It would have helped provide additional connectivity to the Bandra skywalk and decongest the existing middle footbridge that presently provides east-west connectivity, by being linked to the skywalk. But now with the skywalk itself shut, the plan had been stuck," a senior divisional official said.
102m
Length of the new FOB
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