Locals to start from Parel, monorail will run till Jacob Circle from Monday

On Sunday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union railway minister Piyush Goyal flagged off the first train from the new mini-terminus at Parel. From Monday morning, 32 services will run between Parel and Thane and Kalyan.

A new terminus at Parel, the monorail finally running its full course and two new flyovers to decongest Thane may just drive away your Monday morning traffic blues.

Commuters travel from the first local train which starts from Parel terminus in Mumbai, on Sunday, March 3, 2019.(Pratik Chorge/HT Photo)

On Sunday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union railway minister Piyush Goyal flagged off the first train from the new mini-terminus at Parel. From Monday morning, 32 services will run between Parel and Thane and Kalyan. The ₹51-crore project, built under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), was planned to unburden Dadar station, after Parel and Prabhadevi have grown into bustling business hubs.

At the launch, railway minister Goyal also announced a slew of new rail projects and suburban railway amenities for Mumbai, months before the Lok Sabha elections. These include 180 escalators, a new suburban station called Chikhloli between Ambernath and Badlapur, and a 28 -km railway line between Kalyan and Murbad.

Fadnavis then headed to Mahalaxmi to inaugurate the second phase of the monorail, which will run from Wadala to Jacob Circle in Mahalaxmi. With this, the monorail will run its entire 19.5-km course — from Chembur to Jacob Circle— eight years after it was originally supposed to be completed.

At the Parel function, Goyal also green-lighted converting an existing goods line to a passenger line, to connect Mumbai to Alibaug by rail. On Sunday, the Railway Land Development Authority and Dharavi Development Authority also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to transfer 45 acres of railway land for the Dharavi development project. This land will be used to rehabilitate families from one of Asia’s biggest slums.

In Thane, Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray opened two flyovers — Meenatai Thackeray and Sant Namdeo Chowk — more than a decade after the proposals were first mooted. The flyovers are expected to ease traffic congestion near two crucial junctions by 20%, said Thane civic officials.