It isn’t an exaggeration to call the local trains the lifeline of Mumbai, carrying 75 lakh commuters across the city every day. No other form of transport comes close to this figure; taxis and auto rickshaws ferry over 50 lakh people, while the numbers for BEST buses stand at 30 lakh and continue to dwindle. Of the newer kids on the block, the Monorail is labouring on with barely 15,000 or so passengers per day. But the city’s future hope could rest on the Metro, which after an initial struggle has managed to rake in 9 crore commuters over the past year.

Over the past year, Mumbai Metro’s Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar corridor suffered from a slow pace of work and surging project costs, but it now seems to have finally garnered confidence in the minds of Mumbaikars and the footfall has remained steady in recent months. With Metro I becoming a success story, perhaps it is time that the authorities earnestly begin work on other corridors. Already the suburban trains are busting at the seams, and even Metro I, at approximately 2.5 lakh passengers a day, is the eighth most dense Metro network in the world.