BMC to refurbish 105 BEST bus stops in suburbs

Mumbai: In a bid to ease the walkability of pedestrians and improve the existing street infrastructure in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to refurbish and install new bus shelters at 105 different locations in the suburban belt of Mumbai.

This project is part of BMC’s ambitious Tactical Urbanism (TU) plan in which the civic body has aimed to maximise the use of public spaces to make it available for its citizens.

The BMC has earmarked 105 locations in the eastern and western suburbs, where it will be installing these bus shelters on the footpaths by replacing the existing ones. The existing shelters are decade old structures that are primarily built from iron and steel.

The new shelters will have movable metal benches clamped on the footpath. These benches will have a transparent enclosure that will not obstruct visibility of passengers, unlike the existing shelters. According to senior officials of the BMC, these newly proposed shelters will consume less space, have an aesthetic design and will also be visually appealing.

“These shelters will use minimum space which in return will de-clutter the footpaths and pedestrians can walk with more ease on the roads,” said Kiran Dighavkar assistant municipal commissioner and in charge of the planning department, which is executing this project.

The BMC has earmarked a budget of ₹8.76 crore for the Bus-Shelter project and it will be completing the project in next six months. The BMC has carried out a survey along with officials of Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking to analyse some of the key locations in the city which has a higher demand for BEST buses and where the existing bus stops are currently in a dilapidated condition. Based on this survey the areas are being chosen.

According to data shared by the planning department, 13 such shelters will come up at Govandi in eastern suburbs, followed by 11 shelters in Deonar and 10 shelters in Goregaon at Western suburbs.

Similar bus stops were installed by the BMC last year in the Colaba, Kala Ghoda area which is a heritage precinct. This was a pilot project and based on the response that these bus shelters received from Mumbaikars; BMC will now implement it into several other locations in Mumbai.

“The key-idea is to extend the suburban belt simultaneously along with the island city,” said Dighavkar.

Aaditya Thackeray, state minister of environment and guardian minister of Mumbai attended the ground-breaking ceremony on Sunday morning. “We’re revamping the bus stops in Mumbai Suburban District to make them more accommodative, comfortable, safe! 105 bus stops have been approved already, and will be taking up all the others this year too,” Aaditya tweeted.

Areas where these shelters coming up

Govandi - 13

Deonar - 11

Goregaon - 10

Bandra - 8

Ghatkopar - 8

Kurla - 7

Mulund - 6