BENGALURU: Nearly 156 years after the first passenger train chugged out of Bengaluru Cantonment, the city’s oldest railway station, the road in front of its main entry is set to get a much needed amenity for passengers: a skywalk. Come February, passengers, particularly the elderly or those with heavy luggage, will no longer have to brave the constant flow of vehicles to get to the station from the parking space across the one-way road.
Sridhar, a construction worker, said that mornings and evenings are terrible. “The rush of vehicles begins at 8.45 am and continues till 11 am nonstop. In the evenings, the surge starts at 6pm and continues till 8pm. Those rushing do not care to stop for anyone crossing and people spend so much time to cross one road. A signal was put up some years ago but since no cop stands there, no one cares to stop,” he said.
The proposed pedestrian walkway with lifts on either end, to be built at a cost of nearly Rs 2.25 crore, will be of much help to people like P Narasimhan and N Bhavana. The elderly couple held hands on Monday evening as they patiently waited to reach the entrance of the station from across the road. They finally sprinted across together.
“We managed to cross quickly today. But there are times we have waited 10-15 minutes to cross,” she said, adding, “I only hope they install lifts, otherwise I will not be able to climb the stairs.” She and Narasimhan travel frequently to Hyderabad and Chennai.An autorickshaw driver, Abdullah, who has run his pre-paid service here for the last 15 years, said he had frequently seen people fall down when rushing to reach the station entrance.
A N Krishna Reddy, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Railway Division, told TNIE that an average of 25,000 people use the station daily with 82 Express trains (including daily and weekly trains) and 34 passenger trains either passing through the station, originating or terminating here.
R V Basavaraj of Ripple Media, which has the contract to construct the skywalk, said, “The skywalk will be ready for use by February 15. All civil works are in place. The lifts have arrived and need to be installed. The process of laying cables to facilitate lift operations is underway.”
Though the contract was awarded a year ago, the skywalk has got delayed. “There was a three month delay as Bescom had to provide power supply without which the lift’s installation could not be done. We got it okayed recently,” Basavaraj said.The public-private partnership project, will be fully funded by the contractor. “We will be allowed to generate revenue through advertisements on the skywalk. After a 30-year period, we will hand it back to BBMP.