Mandi House station may spell trouble for road traffic
Development of Mandi House Metro station into an interchange hub will reduce the load from other interchange stations like Rajiv Chowk and Kashmere Gate but it will also have a cascading effect on the road traffic once it becomes operational.
According to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, the station will alleviate 40 per cent of the passenger load from Rajiv Chowk station but the footfall at Mandi House itself will increase by at least seven times. According to officials, the heavy footfall at this station might disrupt the vehicular movement outside the given congested road space. Further, its proximity to the busy ITO intersection, where another Metro station is coming up, will add to the burgeoning road traffic on this stretch.
The round-about outside the Mandi House station caters to heavy volume of traffic coming from seven stretches namely Sikandara Road, Bhagwan Das Road, Copernicus Marg, Ferozshah Road, Barakhamba Road, Tansen Marg and Safdar Hashmi Marg. According to a traffic police official, the congestion outside the station will increase once it becomes operational. Notably, two of entry/exit gates of the upcoming station will also open towards the Tilak Marg intersection near Pragati Maidan Metro station. Since this intersection is heavily congested since it caters to the ITO intersection and Mathura Road, the vehicular and pedestrians’ load will only aggravate in coming days.
According to hour estimates, “Over 40,000 Passenger Car Units (PCUs) cross this intersection hour, during the morning and evening peak hours. This load will increase once the station comes up thereby amplifying the waiting time,” said the official.
According to Delhi Metro, while the footfall at the existing Mandi House Metro station is approximately 10,000 the passenger load will undergo a multifold increase once the station is converted into a junction. “According to Detailed Project Report (DPR), the interchange passenger load will be around 70,000 people daily,” said a DMRC spokesperson. The station while facilitating the movement of huge number of passengers, the proposed station will exert immense pressure on the road infrastructure of the place.
The station at present caters to the prominent establishments such as Himachal Bhawan, National School of Drama and the office crowd to ITO. “The station at present serves to the scores working class crowd bound to ITO. The movement of scores of passengers in and out the station will aggravate the traffic volume on the already pressed Sikandara Road. This will not only throw up traffic management challenges but will also trigger bottlenecks
on the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,” said a traffic police official. Commuters whine that it takes around 30-35 minutes to cross the brief stretch from Mandi House to ITO during the rush hours.
As per the DMRC projections, approximately 1.5 lakh commuters are expected to shift from Rajiv Chowk to Mandi House junction, which is likely top be completed by March next year. The station will facilitate smooth transition to thousands of commuters on the Badarpur corridor, who have to change trains twice — at Central Secretariat and Rajiv Chowk — connect with the Noida line.
“The Mandi House interchange will allow them to switch to Blue line directly. The Mandi House station will be built using Cut & Cover Method. The new Mandi House station is coming up next to the existing one and will be 11 metre below ground level. The completely underground station will be integrated with the existing Mandi House Metro station at the con-course level. The upcoming station is part of the proposed Central Secretariat to Kashmere Gate corridor and is being constructed using
the cut and cover technology,” added the spokesperson. It will also ease load from other stations.