The railways are looking at connecting Lokmanya Tilak Terminus to Kurla and Tilak Nagar with an airport-like travelator, to make the station more accessible
Tell anybody they have to go to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in Kurla, and you will likely be met with a scowl or a frown. Despite the terminus being recently refurbished, it has earned a reputation for being an inconvenience, owing to its poor connectivity. The railway authorities are now looking at improving this situation.
Despite undergoing a makeover recently, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus remains undesirable due to its poor connectivity. File pic
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A series of inspections have been made at LTT, including the latest one on Tuesday (June 23) by Divisional Railway Manager (Mumbai) Amitabh Ojha. He is in charge of ensuring stations in Mumbai are up to the mark, and this was his second visit to LTT in the past few days.
Sources claimed these steps were taken after having received complaints galore from commuters, about the station and its facilities. One of the plans in the works is to introduce a travelator a mechanical moving floor on which people simply can stand to go from one place to another.
“We are planning to have a travelator right from LTT to Kurla and Tilak Nagar stations. However, the project is stuck due to lack of funds,” said a CR official, on condition of anonymity. Officials added that the MMRDA could pump in R55 crore for the travelator.
Inaccessible
The station is already hard to reach, thanks to its poor approach road. The authorities want to barricade the road going towards the station to bar unscrupulous elements from loitering around LTT. Commuters have also complained of illegal auto rickshaws and taxis, which fleece passengers.
There have also been serious cases involving rogue auto drivers. “The station building is isolated and its entry/exit points are in a poor state,” said another CR official. This has rendered the parking lots outside useless, since taxis and auto rickshaws are found blocking the road and preventing the entry of vehicles which come to drop people to the station.
Even the BEST is struggling to get its buses to the terminus. Since mid-2014, the BEST and Central Railway have been sparring over a plot for parking buses at LTT. To make matters worse, the Santacruz Chembur Link Road (SCLR) has eaten up space at Kurla LTT, where a provision for a bus station could have been made. DRM Amitabh Ojha was unavailable for comment.
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