Commuters at Charni Road station irked by foot overbridge demolition

The ongoing demolition of the foot overbridge towards the north exit (in the direction of Borivali) has annoyed commuters at Charni Road station

The ongoing demolition of the foot overbridge towards the north exit (in the direction of Borivali) has annoyed commuters at Charni Road station.

Mumbai - 25th June 2010 - The foot over bridge at Charni Road railway station was closed for passengers for two hours in the morning after a beam of the bridge collapsed - HT Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar (Hindustan Times)

The Western Railway (WR) had announced that the bridge would be out of bounds from October 5 for 45 days. It is in the process of building a link way to the existing new bridge that connects all platforms to the footpath.

However, commuters allege that there are no announcements or boards at the station to highlight that the bridge is inaccessible.

“We have to walk all the way to the south end where the bridge is very narrow making it difficult to use it during peak hours. The railway should have made arrangements for an alternative connectivity before it started to pull the old bridge down,” Soma Iyengar, 56, a working professional, said.

Unmindful, many reach the end of the bridge to realise that they would have to walk all the way back to get to a different platform or to move out of the station. Currently, there is a narrow foot overbridge between platform number 2 and 3, which gets congested during peak hours. Besides, there is no direct connectivity between platforms 2 and 3 and platform 1.

Freeda Chettiar, 50, said the travel time from the station to her place of work has doubled.

“My office is just 10 minutes away from the north direction of the station. However, as there is no bridge in that direction towards platforms 2 and 3, I have to travel all the way to the other end of the platform and then walk along the length of it on the road, which takes another 10 minutes,” she said.

A senior official from WR said this foot overbridge has been closed since October 5, for dismantling its and constructing a link way connecting the newly constructed bridge and platforms 2 and 3. “Although this will take two months, we are trying to complete it by November 18,” he said.