Draft CMP for Greater Kochi recommends metro rail on Kalamassery-Kakkanad-Thripunithura stretch

Draft CMP recommends metro line in Kochi, with focus on decongestion, BRTS, and future metro extensions.

The draft Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) prepared for Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) by New Delhi-based Urban Mass Transit Company (UMTC) has recommended, among others, a 14.10-km metro rail line in the Kalamassery-Kakkanad-Thripunithura corridor to decongest Kochi city.

The draft CMP has estimated the peak hour per direction traffic (PHPDT) in the largely two-lane corridor as 15,100. But the CMP has suggested a bus-based mobility corridor (akin to Bus Rapid Transport System - BRTS) on the North Paravur-Aroor stretch where the width ranges between two and six lanes, where it has put the PHPDT as 9,446.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is expected to complete the construction of a six-lane highway on the North Paravur-Edappally NH 66 stretch. It has, in addition, mulled a 16-km-long, six-lane elevated highway on the Edappally-Aroor NH 66 stretch, which would make it a corridor having width ranging between 10 and 12 lanes. Interestingly, the NHAI puts the daily traffic count on the Edappally-Aroor NH 66 stretch at one lakh passenger car units, making it one of the busiest NH corridors in Kerala.

On the feasibility of building a metro viaduct over the elevated highway that the NHAI has proposed in the Aroor-Edappally corridor, sources in KMRL — the agency that the State government had entrusted with the task of preparing the CMP for areas coming under the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) and the Goshree Islands Development Authority (GIDA) — said the PHPDT, which is at present 9,446 on the 35-km North Paravur-Aroor stretch, ought to be over 10,000 in order to qualify for a metro extension. They went on to suggest a BRTS for the stretch.

Traffic planners from the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) and other agencies had warned of a phenomenal increase in traffic on the 35-km stretch, once the highway was widened and a pair of six-lane elevated highways were readied in the 16-km Edappally-Aroor and the 13-km Aroor-Thuravur corridors.

The final draft of the updated CMP for the Greater Kochi area is expected to be readied in three months, after taking into account suggestions by people’s representatives, residents’ association representatives, and other stakeholders. KMRL had entrusted UMTC as the consultant to ready the CMP, a visionary document to present a strategy for short-, medium- and long-term developments to improve accessibility and mobility for residents in the region. Further extensions of the Kochi metro depend on the CMP which was published in 2017 and is now being revised.